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I can’t claim credit for this (and won’t), but I really miss the writings of Steven Godfrey in the Daily Mississippian:

by Steven Godfrey (the Daily Mississippian)
The Tight End
November 20, 2003

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.”

– Sportswriter Bill Shankly, 1981

Before I start the usual column, let’s get this out of the way: I quit smoking this week, therefore my disposition ranks somewhere around a weekend in the Neverland Ranch guest bedroom. Shut up and read.

Students of Ole Miss, get your butts in gear for this game.

I mean it. A higher power came to me in a dream last night and decreed the following 10 orders.

You are to do the following as soon as you’re done reading this.

1) Leave class immediately. This is no time for higher learning.

2) Organize your Saturday schedule to where you can prance through the Grove, drink copious amounts of alcohol and still be in the stands one hour before kickoff.

3) Find one piece of furniture you’re not attached to. Drag it into the yard for Saturday night’s celebration (or wake).

4) Buy red clothing. Buy red face paint. That goes for you, too, debutantes.

5) Stock up on the essentials: toilet paper, airplane bottles of Fighting Cock and a change of underwear.

6) Do not sleep Friday night. At dawn, cover yourself in red, head to toe.

7) Notify next of kin. March to the stadium.

Stop for one second. Realize this is the biggest football game you’ll ever witness and take a moment to revel in the true beauty that is coming of age in this blessed town at this blessed university.

You could be fighting a war in some third world country right now (or living in Starkville), but instead you’re at a game you can tell your grandchildren about.

9) Enter Vaught-Hemmingway.

10) Unleash holy hell.

You want a pep talk? Bulletin board material?
I’m your man, so if you’re not fired up by the end of this column, ask for your money back.

Remember that cutesy-poo Ole Miss motto of “Open Doors”?

Well, shut ‘em. Lock and load folks, because the Cajuns are coming.

It’s come to light that in villas such as Jackson and Biloxi, LSU fans are flooding talk radio and Internet chat rooms with a barrage of heavy handed insults.

How they got computers mystifies me, but I’ve been hit with a ton of e-mails from faithful Rebels throughout the South who’ve been attacked by Tiger disciples claiming this Saturday to be a “pushover win,” a “rout,” a “cake walk,” a “lubricated rodgering in the gang showers,” if you will.

In the words of Nappy Roots, “Aw naw. Hell naw. Y’all done up and done it.”

Perhaps you faithful readers have forgotten my all-encompassing disgust with anyone or thing from Cajun country.

I might have my hands tied on the NFL front (thanks Falcons), but allow me to parlay my hatred of the Bayou onto the college front.

If you’re annoyed by these slope-headed goobers in purple and gold, do not raise a hand in anger.

Remember to be sympathetic, because if a Cajun is insulting Ole Miss, he or she is probably having to do it by reading off a cue card written in phonetics while suffering through a bout of syphilis.

Also understand that there isn’t much going on in central Louisiana (other than daily reenactments of “Deliverance”), so this is all that these gene pool bonanzas have going for them.

You try copulating with your cousin/sibling/household pet more than twice a week.

Eventually you have to move onto barnyard animals, then inanimate objects and finally just a Glamour Shots portrait of Matt Mauck.

It gets repetitive.

Really, it’s a simple mathematical formula: anytime you take the intellectual gold mine that is redneck America, multiply it by everyone’s favorite foreign culture (the French) and add on a gorgeous landscape of mud that’s slowly sinking into the Gulf Of Mexico.

You’re bound to get annoying people.

But exercise patience with Louisianites, or just jangle your car keys.

They’ll watch in awe.

The only alarming claim coming from the Kitty Kat elite is that “we’ll take over the bars and parties, just like we do in every other town we go to. We rule the rowdy!”

Uh, that might not be a good idea. Technically Mississippi is the “Hospitality State,” but a single drunken insult or aggressive move toward an Oxford bar employee or police officer will most definitely get you a down-home welcome, via a Mag-Lite to the teeth.

It’s time folks, and even though I wasn’t born red and blue, I feel like this is the game I’ve waited my whole life to watch…while sober and in dress clothes (Man, that press box rule sucks).

Seriously though, exercise a reasonable amount of safety, act like an adult and remember one simple thing: It’s just a football game.

Yeah, right.

It’s too late for the Tiger nation to apologize.

Redraw the state lines, because we’re not taking prisoners

————————————

Me: How do you count one second? Won Mississippi!

The KKK gathered at Ole Miss today to protest the University chancellor’s decision to remove “From Dixie with Love” from the school band’s song list. The song had drawn controversy because some fans chanted “the South will rise again” when it was played at Ole Miss football games.

According to the AP, around twelve members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan waved flags and issued Nazi-style salutes. The AP estimated that 250 people showed up to protest the Klan’s presence.

Kevin Cozart (ME!!!), a senior at the University and the coordinator for operations at the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender studies, sent in some photos along with a report from the scene:

Under an overcast sky and greeted with a wall of boos and calls to leave, a few members of the Mississippi Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan rallied on the campus of the University of Mississippi this morning… for less than ten minutes. Little could be heard of any message they attempted to convey. Dressed in the highly recognizable robes, the ten Klansmen that showed up simply stood and waved their banners of hate and ignorance from the portico of Fulton Chapel, a fitting place since it is the home of the Theatre Department’s productions. The sizable crowd that had gathered to see them was extremely hostile regardless of color, race, creed or university affiliation. After all of the fanfare, bravado and planning (including the use of bomb sniffing dog around the area), the brief appearance by the Klansmen is the very definition of anticlimactic.

The real story of the day was the students, faculty, staff and alumni who gathered peacefully and read the University’s creed in unison repeatedly a few hundred feet from where the Klan had gathered. Organized by One Mississippi, a student group working towards greater social integration at Ole Miss, protesters wore shirts that said “TURN YOUR BACK ON HATE… (I live by the UM Creed)” and stickers with one simple word: “Unity.” Before and after the rally, they talked to fans in town for the game about their message and plan to make their way through the 10-acre, park-like Grove, passing out copies of the UM creed to fans.

Today, the members of the real Ole Miss family were not afraid to show their faces. They were not afraid of the Klansmen. They stood with their backs to them. They stood together to say with one voice that Ole Miss “believe(s) in respect for the dignity of each person.” They stood as the leaders of a new Mississippi, a Mississippi that her citizens and a nation can be proud of.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/21/kkk-rally-at-ole-miss-kla_n_366475.html

I was able to go to a special screening of The Blind Side last night and it is an amazing movie of an even more amazing story. The story deals with how the borderline illiterate Michael Oher and the uber well-to-do Touhy Family meet and become a family. Something that I think has been overlooked in a lot of the press is what can happen when a teacher is able to adapt his or her methods to meet the abilities of the student.  It is a sports movie in much the same way that Jerry McGuire was a sports movie (sans locker room scenes). For those familiar with SEC Football, many of the cameos are quite familiar.

Not to give too much way, but it deals with what makes a family and how love can overcome a lot, especially prejudice and social norms.

One warning, this may not be your movie:

if you like Tennessee and don’t like Ole Miss…

if you like either of the MSU’s: Memphis State or Miss State. The  former is never mentioned even thought the movie is set in Memphis and the latter is only alluded to in the 31-0 shellacking in Eli’s last Egg Bowl in 2003 and a picture of Oher holding last year’s Egg Bowl Trophy after the 45-0 outcome.

I thought Ole Miss was featured a lot in the trailer, it’s nothing compared to the actual movie. Its not “rah, rah” Ole Miss, but an accurate protrayal of how ingrained (word choice?) university loyalties are  Southern households… cups with logos to shirts to Christmas decorations. Ole Miss is “just” the benefactor.

My favorite line (and no it won’t give anything away) is “Who would have guessed that we would have a black son before we knew a Democrat?”

Its feel good without being sappy. It is emotional however.

Alabama and Florida are playing for the SEC Championship (and National Championship) in a few weeks. Big whoop…

The real showdown is between the LSUx Kitties and the Ole Miss Rebels. 2:30 on CBS National.

Winner most likely plays in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando. The loser… well is just the loser. Yeah, they will probably play in either the Outback or Cotton.

Besides the National Offensive Player of the Week, Ole Miss also has the added emotions of playing for Tony Fein (a hero from last year’s game who died suddenly this year) and Ken Kirk (the Center from the 1959 National Championship Team that beat LSU 21-0 in the Sugar Bowl)

Go Rebs

Ole Miss whips Orgeron and Tennessee’s ass 42-17.  Dexter “The Bullet” McCluster had 10 more yards rushing then Tennessee had in total.

Some of you may have heard about the current controversy at The University of Mississippi. We have for years been playing a song known as “From Dixie with Love” (aka The American Trilogy by Elvis Presley). The song blends the battle song of the confederacy Dixie with the battle song of the Union The Battle Hymn of the Republic. About 5 years ago, a small group of students started chanting “The South will rise again” during the part of the Battle Hymn that goes “His truth is marching on.” Over the brief few years, the number of students has increased to the point that it is becoming a problem.

Our new chancellor, Dr. Dan Jones, has tried to stop it through clipping the notes from the song to a direct appeal to the students to stop. Others including the football and men’s basketball coaches, the ASB Senate and Shepard Smith have all asked the students to quit. Early this week, Chancellor Jones issued an ultimatum. Stop the chant or the song will be removed from the band’s playlist.

Today, the final shoe has dropped. Mississippi’s leading segregationist (read as racist, white sheet wearing idiot) has weighed in giving his full support to student who continue the chant.

From the Daily Mississippian:

Nationalist leader Richard Barrett has come forward urging Chancellor Dan Jones to “back off” of the Ole Miss student body concerning their right to chant “the South will rise again,” though the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claims Barrett is known for supporting racist ideals.

“Barrett is a longstanding white supremacist,” according to a previous article written by the SPLC, “He has led rallies of Klansmen and others and worked alongside some of the most extreme racists in America.”

…………………………………

“In an interview with The Daily Mississippian, Barrett was asked why he was opposed to the ending the chant. Barrett said that he was not in opposition to the chant but in favor of the students, saying, “They are not about to haul down the statue of the Confederate soldier and put up Nikita Khrushchev. They are the opposite of the Khrushchev invaders of Budapest and the Meredith (the first black student at Ole Miss) invaders of Ole Miss.”

Hopefully our students will grow up tomorrow and turn their back on Barrett and his racism.