Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 622 Reads
On Thu, 07/30/2020 - 11:53 AM

This was Nov. 3, 1963, a Saturday. Ole Miss was playing a rare afternoon football game against LSU in Baton Rouge. CBS was broadcasting. I was 11 years old, watching on a black and white TV in Hattiesburg.

Football season still uncertain

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 1,605 Reads
On Thu, 07/23/2020 - 03:26 PM

The 2020 football season? To play or not to play, that is the pressing question.
And nobody has a good answer because, frankly, there isn’t one.

New home, friend in Hattiesburg

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 1,773 Reads
On Thu, 07/16/2020 - 04:01 PM

My old and dear friend Nick Kolinsky, a patriot if ever there was one, died four years ago on July 5, a day after his 77th Independence Day.

Sports help Mississippians see their way to change

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 1,417 Reads
On Thu, 07/09/2020 - 04:21 PM

Sports have never been only a game in Mississippi. No, sports are woven deeply into our cultural fabric, a major part of who we are and what we are about. Always have been.

It’s past time for radical change in Conference USA

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 993 Reads
On Thu, 06/25/2020 - 12:33 PM

Southern Miss plays home football games at The Rock, but league foes from a time zone away rarely bring many visiting fans.
The first thing I’d do as commissioner of Conference USA? I’d blow it up.
It doesn’t work.
It didn’t work long before the pandemic. It certainly won’t work now.

Mississippi all-time, all-pro team

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 1,019 Reads
On Thu, 06/18/2020 - 12:28 PM

Chicago Bears Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton (34) runs upfield during an NFL game against the Washington Redskins in Chicago, on Sept. 29, 1985.

Majors made mark in Mississippi, too

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 979 Reads
On Thu, 06/11/2020 - 01:00 PM

Johnny Majors, an All-American football player at Tennessee and a championship-winning coach at Pittsburgh and Tennessee, had many Mississippi connections and friends.

Fourcade has his memories, battle scars

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 1,198 Reads
On Thu, 06/04/2020 - 11:25 AM

This was January, 1990, and John Fourcade was the crown prince of New Orleans. Rex, King of Carnival, had nothing on him. The former Ole Miss star and New Orleans native had come off the bench to lead his hometown New Orleans Saints to three straight victories to end the 1989 season.

RIP: Gentle Ben Williams, who broke football color line at Ole Miss and became ‘Colonel Rebel’

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 1,893 Reads
On Thu, 05/28/2020 - 11:49 AM

They called him Gentle Ben. But Jim Carmody, who coached history-making, trail-blazing Ben Williams at both Ole Miss and then the Buffalo Bills, would like to expound on that nickname.

Baseball humbled Jordan

By Rick Cleveland - Mississippi Today, READ MORE > 1,409 Reads
On Thu, 05/21/2020 - 11:54 AM

We reached the part in Michael Jordan’s “The Last Dance” in which Jordan – at age 31 and having not played baseball in 14 years – leaves the Chicago Bulls to try to make the Major Leagues.

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