Mississippi Today

When the ‘Farmer Boys’ of Mississippi A&M splashed to victory over University

Published

12 months ago

November 20, 2023

When the ‘Farmer Boys’ of Mississippi A&M splashed to victory over University

This is the 1907 Ole Miss football team, which was outscored 195-6 in six football games. Seated far right, on the second row, is the team’s coach Frank Mason, who had been the first football coach at Harvard. The team did not fare well against the “Farmer Boys” of Mississippi A&M. (Courtesy Ole Miss Athletics)

Ole Miss and Mississippi State will play football for the 118th time Thursday in Starkville. The weather forecast calls for partly cloudy skies, a slight chance of rain and a football-friendly 50 degrees at kickoff.

And here’s what you should know about that: 116 years ago, on a miserable Thanksgiving Day, Ole Miss and Mississippi State players could only have dreamed of such balmy weather.

Every State and Ole Miss fan has a favorite Egg Bowl. Mine has to be the 1907 rendition played at the State Fairgrounds, just down the hill from the Old Capitol. Despite what many believe, I am too young to remember much of it. Thankfully, the Clarion-Ledger dispatched a reporter to cover the event for the next day’s newspaper and for future generations. The reporter didn’t get a byline, but he got one hell of a story, as we shall see.

The biggest headline read: “UNIVERSITY WENT DOWN BEFORE THE FARMER BOYS.”

The subhead read: “A Great Game of Football Was Played in Mud and Water, But Great Crowd of Wet Spectators Enjoyed the Fun.”

The reporter’s lead paragraph was short and to the point: “A&M 16, University 0.” That’s it. The writer not only got the score in the first paragraph, the score WAS the first paragraph.

But one hundred and sixteen years later, I am here to tell you: The writer buried the lede. You will see.

The unnamed reporter did do a splendid job of setting the scene: “Rain began to fall Wednesday evening, continued in a drizzling kind of way till midnight, when the upper regions were thrown wide open and the rain came down in torrents until late on the day of the big game. The grounds are naturally low, with no drainage whatever, but in dry weather are well-suited for the business of playing football. During the past three days, the Fair management has been busy, filling up low places, leveling off and improving the grounds as much as possible, but all to no avail as far as the conditions were concerned yesterday afternoon.”

The conditions were apparently no better for the estimated 2,500 fans who braved the elements, as our intrepid reporter wrote: “The road and walks from State Street to the ball grounds were about as bad and disagreeable as it is possible for roads to be, and those so fortunate to have conveyances, public or private, were just about able to get along and that is all. The foot passengers waded through mud and water over their shoe tops, and were a bedraggled sight when they reached the grandstand or the wire netting that surrounds the ball grounds.”

Just as the reader is considering the term “foot passengers,” the reporter gets to the game: “The players lined up for the first half at about 2:30, all eager apparently for the fray, and both sides confident of victory. The betting, if any was indulged in, was at odds, the A&M boys being very decided favorites with those who had little cash to risk on the battle that was played under such difficulties.”

Now then, here’s one of my favorite parts: “But the spectators seemed more interested in the conditions of the grounds and the brand of weather provided by an unkind clerk than were the sturdy youngsters who were to provide the brawn and muscle and take all the risks of broken bones and black eyes and death by strangulation in the pools of unknown and uncertain depths that were scattered over the gridiron.”

We just don’t get sports writing like that any more, or like this that followed:

“The first half lasted 35 minutes (no TV timeouts) and was fast and furious from start to finish. It was apparent that the A&M eleven was the better trained of the two, that it was heavier and speedier and stood the best chance of winning, but they were no fuller of grit than their University opponents, who fought across and beyond, back and forth over every yard of the field…”

Such flowery prose continues until we learn the halftime score was 0-0, and then, “The contestants had been soused in water up to their ears time and again and were wet and fighting muddy. They threw discretion to the winds in the second half and took their cold baths as if it made them feel better.”

We can presume those cold baths did feel better for A&M, as the “Farmer Boys” scored all 16 points “earned only after the hardest and roughest kind of scrambles and close attention to the business of the game.”

And then there was this: “The feature of the afternoon was the 70-yard run and goal made by Dent (no first name), though Grant made two or three runs that would have done credit to any ball player in the land and proved him worthy to wear the honors he earned last week at Memphis when he was declared the most phenomenal 130 pounds of football material ever seen in that city.”

Apparently, the post-game trek back up the hill to the business district was every bit as harrowing as the game itself. Wagons bogged down in the mud. “Conveyances were abandoned,” as the writer put it. “A great float filled with college boys headed to town, but the team gave out, the harness broke, and the occupants were forced to disembark in the muddiest, wettest section of the road.”

Nobody died, but somebody did get fired. Ole Miss finished the season 0-6 and was outscored 195 to 6.

Here’s the last paragraph and where the reporter buried his lede: “There was no rowdyism at any stage of the game or afterwards, but some of the players and backers of the University team were sore over the defeat, and very much inclined to lay the blame on their coach, a Harvard man. On the other hand, the coach was ‘beefing’ about the team, declaring it ‘the hardest set’ he had ever tackled.” Asked if the team was going to leave town that night, the coach said, “Yes, the team is going North at 11 o’clock; I’m going another direction and hope I will never see them again.”

That coach, Frank Mason, probably never did see his players again. It later came to light that he had tried to keep his players warm that wet, chilly day with an urn of hot coffee on the team’s bench. To make sure they were good and warm, Mason spiked the coffee with whiskey. From his post-game comments, I am guessing he partook.

Not surprisingly, Mason was subsequently dismissed, by no means the last coach ever fired after an Egg Bowl defeat. And, as likely as not, Mason never did see his team again.

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1875

Published

4 hours ago

November 2, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-02 07:00:00

Nov. 2, 1875

Pictured here are U.S. Sen. Hiram Revels of Mississippi, left, with six Black members of the U.S. House, Ben J.S. Turner of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, Jefferson H. Long of Georgia, and Robert C. De Large, Joseph H. Rainy and R. Brown Elliot, all of South Carolina. Credit: Library of Congress

The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.

A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.

Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.

The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.

John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: “It was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.”

A federal grand jury concluded: “Fraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.”

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

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi Today’s NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi

Published

16 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Mary Margaret White – 2024-11-01 12:34:00

High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.

In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Here at Mississippi Today we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories free for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Why NewsMatch and Why Now?

This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special opportunity to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in funding, bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.

Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday life—whether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.

Special Event: “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact”

As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual event, “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.” Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi Today and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s “25-foot law,” which affects journalists’ ability to report vital news.

We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!

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Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.

Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we love—not only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to come.

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

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Mississippi Today

Hinds County loses fight over control of jail

Published

22 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-01 12:57:00

The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.

Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.

However, the appeals court called the new injunction “overly broad” in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.

The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.

The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as “federal intrusion into RDC’s budget” – especially if the receivership has no end date.

Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.

In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.

“But the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,” the appeals court wrote.

This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.

The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.

The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.

Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.

But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.

The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.

Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.

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

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