University of Southern Mississippi and Mississippi State University head football coaches, Jeff Bower and Sylvester Croom, came to Jackson for their respective schools’ summer football galas on the same evening, perhaps the length of a football field apart. It will be the closest the two universities get together this season unless they collide in a bowl game.

Bower, the dean of the Magnolia State head coaches, is used to taking his Golden Eagles to post-season games. He is optimistic about his warriors returning to a bowl game even though his team plays the University of Florida, North Carolina State and Virginia Tech as well as the top teams in Conference USA.

Croom brought all of his seniors to the capital city and is feeling good about the progress the Maroons have made. He thinks the one-sided win over arch-rival Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl is something to build on. The Bulldogs open the season in Starkville against Steve Spurrier's South Carolina warriors on Thursday before Labor Day.

Spurrier and his lovely wife celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this summer.

He was ardently wooed by Johnny Vaught and Johnny Cain as a high school senior from Johnson City, Tenn., before Florida came in late to pick him off. There was a report that Steve's dad, a minister, became pastor of a Gainesville church.

Had Spurrier come to Ole Miss he would have followed Glynn Griffing as the Rebel field general and the Rebels golden years would have continued. Jimmy Lear, Eagle Day, Raymond Brown, Bobby Franklin, Jake Gibbs, Doug Elmore and Griffing were the quarterbacks during the fabulous ’50s and early ’60s. Spurrier won the Heisman Trophy at Florida.

The Red and Blue signal callers followed Charlie Conerly and Farley Salmon Lear led Ole Miss over Maryland in one of the Rebels' all-time victories in 1952, but the Rebs bowed to Georgia Tech in the Sugar Bowl.

Day led the Rebs to its first major bowl victory in Dallas in the Cotton Bowl, beating Vaught's alma mater, TCU. Vaught's first bowl win was the Delta Bowl win over TCU in Crump Stadium in Memphis on the coldest day this writer ever witnessed,

Bouncer Robertson told me that in 2003 Vaught called his alma mater and told them that now that he was retired, he wanted to come to TCU and celebrate his class 70th reunion and asked the date. There was brief silence on the phone and then the TCU official said that John Vaught could select the date because he was the only one left.

Gentleman Jack Giddens went to Louisiana to purchase lottery tickets for the $105 million pay day. In the goodness of his heart, he bought a ticket for me, which Mac McCunnas gave to me at Brent's Drug Store in Belhaven where our coffee club gathers.

I got little sleep that night figuring what I would do with the money, starting with a gift to St. Peter’s Church, paying off the credit card, gifts for my children and grandchildren, giving Jack Giddens a share for his purchasing the ticket.

Well, no one won and I will have to delay my kindness for another day. In the meantime, the mail brought a letter from Publishers Clearing House, indicating I was a finalist for their million dollar jackpot, followed by a second letter from PCH that someone with my JLM initials in Jackson was going to win some money. I am subscribing to more magazines now than I can possibly read. PCH says you don't have to buy anything to get the jackpot. Stay tuned.

The pro and college football hall of fame inductions have come and gone for 2006, and some most deserving gridders were immortalized at Canton and South Bend. The search for 2007 legends has begun, and let us quickly insert once more the greatest football field general who has not as yet been immortalized -- Chunkin Charlie Conerly, Number 42 of the New York Giants.

Before he died, Wellington Mara, president of the Giants, told me that was his next project, getting Conerly elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Author Christopher Walsh flatly called Conerly "the best player not in the Hall of Fame."

Conerly, a decorated World War II Marine, who served in the South Pacific and twice had his rifle shot out of his hand, played for the Giants for 14 seasons after returning to Ole Miss after the war to lead John Vaught's Rebels to their first SEC championship, winning All-American acclaim.

Conerly led the Giants to four division titles and a championship. With such stars as Hugh McElhenny, Frank Gifford, Alex Webster, Kyle Rote, Jimmy Patton, E.M. Tunnell on board, Conerly was the leader of this star-studded crew. He threw the passes that Gifford and Rote and others snared. He held the ball for Pat Summerall's field goal and extra point kicks, in conditions of rain or snow as well. He was the first Marlboro Man, his rugged good looks made him the perfect cowboy.

In the greatest game ever played in pro football, Conerly sparked the Giants to an early lead and the writers’ voting cast MVP honors in Conerly's name. Then the Colts rallied to tie the score and win in overtime, so the writers voted again and this time the vote went to John Unitas, which he deserved. Unitas has long been in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Conerly is long gone, but his widow Perian is still waiting. Hopefully, the veterans committee will have her wait no longer and vote number 42 into the hallowed hall in 2007.