Mississippi Today

She was Caitlin Clark 74 years ago. Now, Dot Burrow is a Hall of Famer.

Published

9 months ago

July 1, 2024

BOSTON — In Mississippi, Dot Ford Burrow was Caitlin Clark a half century before Caitlin Clark was born, scoring 50 points per game back in 1950 for tiny Smithville High School in Monroe County.

Monday night in Boston, Mrs. Burrow, grandmother of football’s Joe Burrow, finally received recognition for her basketball excellence 74 years after she completed one of the most amazing high school basketball careers of anyone, anywhere, ever.

Dot Burrow, three months shy of her 93rd birthday, was inducted into the National High School Sports Hall of Fame along with the likes of baseball great Joe Mauer, and football stars Takeo Spikes and Tyrone Wheatley and seven others. Mrs. Burrow received a standing ovation from a jam-packed crowd of several hundred, including her famous grandson, in the Boston Marriott Copley Place ballroom.

In many ways, Dot Burrow stole the show from all other inductees. One example: Mauer, who will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, followed Burrow in speaking at a press conference earlier Monday. After Burrow charmed reporters and onlookers with her remarks, Mauer began his. “How am I supposed to follow her?” he said, evoking laughter from all in attendance.

Joe Mauer, left, and Dot Burrow. (Photo by Keith Warren)

Bruce Howard, communications director of the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS), called Dot Burrow “one of the most inspiring and touching stories in the 46-year history of the NFHS Hall of Fame.”

She is that. Back when she played for Smithville, the town’s population was just over 400, yet she created such interest in girls basketball that Smithville’s home games often were moved to nearby Amory and played at the National Guard Armory before sellout crowds of more than 1,000. She led Fulton to a state championship and led the team in scoring as a 14-year-old ninth grader, then transferred to nearby Smithville as a sophomore. Dot Ford was so good, so unstoppable around the basket that one opposing team tried to stop her by putting a defender on the shoulders of another.

“I believe it was Aberdeen in the county tournament my senior year,” Mrs. Burrow said. “Their coach instructed one player to get on the shoulders of another under our basket.”

Did it work?

“No,” she shook her head. “It did not.”

Another team tried to stop her by having their defenders try to stomp on her feet. That didn’t work either.

“But I had sore feet for weeks,” said Mrs. Burrow, who once scored 82 points in a single game.

Takeo Spikes, left, and Dot Burrow at a Hall of Fame reception. (Photo by Rick Cleveland)

Today, Caitlin Clark is one of the most famous basketball players, male or female, in the world and makes millions of dollars in salary and endorsements. Back in 1950, when Dot Burrow finished her high school career, there was scant opportunity for female basketball players beyond high school. Mississippi colleges and universities didn’t sponsor the sport. There was no WNBA.

“I had offers from two junior colleges, but I decided to get married,” Mrs. Burrow said. “My boyfriend (James Burrow) was playing college basketball, so I got married and went and helped him get through Mississippi State. I wrote most of his papers, helped him all I could. And then we raised a fine family. I have no regrets.”

Their oldest son, Jimmy Burrow, was a terrific football player for Nebraska. Younger son John Burrow played defensive back for Ole Miss. Grandson Joe Burrow – “Joey” to Dot – had perhaps the greatest single season in college football history at LSU and now stars for the Cincinnati Bengals. Twenty-one family members, including children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, were in Boston on Monday to celebrate.

Asked to describe his mother, Jimmy Burrow said, “She’s just got a big, big heart. She is always thinking about other people, not herself. She has all the greatest attributes you could want in a mother, wife, grandmother and friend.”

Said spry, 94-year-old James Burrow, as quick with a quip as he was with feet as Mississippi State’s starting point guard, “All these years I didn’t know I was sleeping with a celebrity.”

James Burrow said Smithville coaches asked for volunteers to date Dot Ford in hopes of convincing her to transfer from Fulton. James Burrow said he wasn’t keen on the idea until he saw her at a party. “Then I said to myself, ‘Hmm, I’ve been looking at this the wrong way,’” James Burrow said, chuckling. “We’ve been together ever since.”

Asked about her greatest memory from her Smithville playing days, Dot Burrow responded, “I just loved playing with all my friends. All my teammates, except one, have passed on. There are only two of us left and the other lives in Arkansas now. I sure do miss ‘em.”

Said Mississippi High School Activities Association director Rickey Neaves, who draped the Hall of Fame medallion around Mrs Burrow’s neck on Monday night to a prolonged standing ovation, “It is an honor and a privilege to see her inducted. She is so deserving. She was an athlete far ahead of her time. She has made Mississippi proud.”

Yes, she has.

Asked what she is most proud of, nearly three quarters of a century after her playing career ended, Dot Burrow responded, “I’m just so proud of my family, all of them, husband, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. I am especially proud of our grandson Joey. He has made a name for himself in Ohio and across the nation. I hope I made a name for myself back in Smithville in 1949 and 1950.”

Not to worry, Dot, your fame now extends far beyond Smithville, Monroe County and Mississippi. And surely we can all agree on this: Seventy-four years later, it is about time.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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On this day in 1933

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March 17, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-03-17 07:00:00

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
March 17, 2025

March 17, 1933

In 2011, Myrlie Evers and her children christened the Military Sealift Command dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE 13) at the General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. in San Diego.

Myrlie Beasley Evers was born on St. Patrick’s Day in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She had visions of being a concert pianist, but Jim Crow conspired against her and she wound up attending what is now Alcorn State University, which offered a minor in music.

On her first day on campus, she met Medgar Evers. The two married. He became the Mississippi NAACP’s first field secretary, and she became his secretary.

After he was assassinated, her husband’s killer, Byron De La Beckwith, was tried twice, but walked free when the juries couldn’t reach a verdict. She pushed for his reprosecution, which finally took place in 1994 when he was convicted of murder and received a life sentence.

A year later, she was elected chair of the national NAACP, helping rescue the civil rights organization from the brink of bankruptcy. A dynamic speaker, she became the first woman and first layperson to deliver the prayer at the presidential inauguration in 2013.

“I have never been in this world one day without love,” she said, “and it has carried me through everything I have been through to this point, and it will carry me off.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Podcast: Is the Mississippi Legislature any closer to a tax cut/elimination/increase deal?

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mississippitoday.org – Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance – 2025-03-17 06:30:00

Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins gives an update on where negotiations stand on tax overhaul proposals in the Mississippi Legislature, and his thoughts on the differing Senate and House proposals that would include cutting or eliminating the personal income tax and raising taxes on gasoline.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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On this day in 1960

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March 16, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-03-16 07:00:00

On this day in 1960

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
March 16, 2025

March 16, 1960

Inspired by the Greensboro sit-in a month earlier, Black students staged sit-ins at whites-only lunch counters in eight downtown stores in Savannah, Georgia.

Students Carolyn Quilloin Coleman, Joan Tyson Hall and Ernest Robinson stepped into Levy’s Department Store, shopping before entering the segregated Azalea Room. The server ordered them to leave, but they attempted to order anyway. Police hauled them to jail, where they sang, “We Shall Overcome.”

Robinson recalled looking at his hand where he scrawled the words of a Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

“That verse uplifted us,” Coleman told the Savannah Morning News. “We were very familiar with what had happened to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old student who was killed in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a White girl across the street. While we thought that we were safe in Savannah, we knew that anything could happen.”

In response, Black leaders W.W. Law, Hosea Williams and Eugene Gadsden organized a boycott of city businesses and led voter registration drives that brought changes to city government. Seven months later, Savannah repealed its ordinance requiring segregated lunch counters. The boycott continued until all facilities were desegregated in October 1963.

Months later, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived to hail the passing of Jim Crow ways. The Levy’s Department Store building now houses the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Jen Library, and a historic marker now honors the students’ fight for freedom.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.