WAKE UP! | My first-ever sports gig / Presented by COZY COFFEE STATION
EDITOR’S NOTE: Wake Up! is presented by Cozy Coffee Station, which you should be visiting every day that they’re open (which is all the time) at both locations in East Texas, in Kilgore at 110 Midtown Plaza, and in Gilmer at 755 Highway 271 North. Check out their fantastic, phenomenal, unbelievable (did I say fantastic?!) menu here (Home | Cozy Coffee Station), and see them on social media, of course! On Facebook, it’s simply Cozy Coffee Station-Kilgore and Cozy Coffee Station-Gilmer, and on Instagram, it’s @cozycoffeestation_Kilgore and @cozycoffeestation_gilmer.
All of the Lane Kiffin-to-LSU stuff over the weekend has me thinking about my first assignment, my very first assignment, at a daily paper, because it was at Ole Miss.
It was way back, all the way back on January 11, 1997.
Yeah, I DO remember the date, and here’s why, and how.
Back then, Lane Kiffin was a junior at Fresno State University, a quarterback who would soon be a student assistant (because he was thinking about transferring to somewhere else. He wasn’t playing). More on the Lane Train later.
Everybody in north Mississippi and north Alabama awoke that morning to ice and snow. It was supposed to be a big day for me: No. 1 Kentucky (men’s basketball) was coming to Oxford to play Ole Miss at “The Tad Pad” (Tad Smith Coliseum) and it was on national TV, on ESPN. I had just moved from news to sports at The Commercial Dispatch, the Columbus, Mississippi newspaper, and I was excited. I had covered a few things as a substitute, but this was my first real gig as a full-time sports guy. I was the fourth man, though, in a four-man sports rotation, the low man on the totem poll, the rookie.
In short, if there were bags to be carried – lifts hand. Know what I mean?
I’m calling, calling, calling the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, calling in every favor I can to officers I know, is there some way I can avoid road closures and get to Oxford. Where I was, I’m about two hours away. The best answer I got: “Mitch,” the gravely voice told me, “they’re not closed right now. Best thing I can tell you is go on now, but have hotel money. Maybe more than one night’s worth. You understand?”
I agreed and off I went. The cell phone in my car at that point weighed as much as I did, and I wasn’t about to call the sports editor at the time, Henry Matusczak, and tell him I couldn’t go. Henry was my mentor, and he’d hunt me down, tie me up and make me watch every episode of “The Facts of Life” until I screamed for mercy (that would probably be one episode).
I got within about a mile and a half of Oxford before the roads really got rough. I was the only freaking car on the road when I saw them.
Those familiar red-and-blue lights.
I pulled over – darn near ran into the ditch – and the officer got to the window. To say he was unhappy with me would be, well, a gross understatement. He skipped the formalities of asking for my license and insurance.
“Can you tell me what the *heck* (didn’t say heck) you’re doing on this road right now?!,” he asked, and he wasn’t too young of a guy. I was 26 at the time.
I explained I was going to Ole Miss-Kentucky, that I was close to tip-off, that I was almost there and had brought hotel money, that I could be fired, that this was my first sports assignment for the Dispatch, and that I might have to watch hours and hours of “The Facts of Life” if he didn’t let me get there.
OK, I didn’t tell him about “The Facts of Life.” But the rest of it I told him.
He looked at his boots for what seemed like 10 minutes. And then he looked at me.
“All right, come on. Follow me.”
He turned on his lights and we just about crawled through campus at 18 miles an hour.
Do you know why that’s significant?
Because that’s the speed limit on the Ole Miss campus. And 18 was Archie Manning’s number at Ole Miss.
We got there in time and I took my seat with the other media at the scorer’s table.
Oh, but there’s more.
Kentucky was coached by Rick Pitino back then, and had Jamal Mashburn in their line-up. If you’ve never heard of either of those two, shame on you. Pitino is among the winningest coaches in college basketball history, and would go on to coach in both the NBA (Boston) and at Kentucky rival Louisville, among other stops. Mashburn was drafted and had a nice NBA career.
So we’re at the scorer’s table and back then, Ole Miss had a mascot named “Johnny Reb,” short for “Rebel,” obviously, who looked like a cross between Robert E. Lee and Colonel Sanders. Well, Johnny Reb was actually just a student wearing a big mascot head and a basketball jersey, and carrying – and swinging – a big cane.
The scorer’s table is right there on the court, and the cheerleaders perform near it. Johnny Reb is racing back and forth in front of it, and performs little stunts, or he did back then. And he’d twirl that cane, throw it up, whatever.
This particular Johnny Reb took a lot of joy in doing stunts with the cane.
And he hit me with it. Twice.
I knew it was an accident, but it hurt both times.
He’s a kid, I thought, and he’s 4-5 years younger than me. So I don’t say anything.
Then he hit me again, another accident, this time in the arm. And it hurt.
So I motioned for him to come over to me. It’s loud, and he couldn’t hear. So I got a cheerleader’s attention.
“Can you tell him to maybe be careful with the cane? He’s hit me a few times,” I said.
She heard me. She said, “Yes, I’m so sorry!”
So she went to him, said something in his ear and he nodded. I saw him nod, and he gave me a thumb’s up. I gave him back a thumb’s up. We’re good, right?
TWO MINUTES LATER, cane hits my arm again, and this time, it really hurts, knocks the pen out of my hand, knocks the notebook off the table of another guy sitting beside me.
Johnny Reb gets close to me. “Hey – be careful, that hurt,” I said.
“Hey, man, I’m so sorry, I’m just in the moment, I’ll be careful,” he said.
We get a few more minutes into the second half, and you know what’s coming.
W H A C K!
I’m smacked in the back of the head and I’m like half knocked the MMMP out. The people around me are concerned! I turn around and Johnny is even concerned! I “gingerly” pull him in so he can hear me. I thought about pulling the mascot head off, but I didn’t.
“Here’s the deal – put the cane up, or I’m gonna put the cane somewhere.”
He called me sir very nicely and the cane was gone.
Now, the next crisis.
Police officer taps my shoulder.
“You ok?”
“Yes, sir, I’m fine…”
“I need you to get your laptop and your things and move over here as quickly as you can.”
I seriously thought Johnny Reb and I were going away!
“But why? I didn’t hurt him or anything…”
The officer explained to me that in all of that, the Rebels had gotten in front of Kentucky. They’re about to win the game and the students are going to rush the court. “They’re coming. And we cannot stop ‘em,” he said.
All the media guys and ladies, they’re gone. Cheerleaders, Johnny and I move. Clock strikes “bommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmpppppp” as the buzzer sounds and number one goes down. Kentucky loses to Ole Miss and I’m on my way to the media area, to listen to Pitino try to explain all this, part of which I miss.
As it happens, I’m the first one there, and Ole Miss has their media room filled with Cokes, chicken strips, fries, a podium and empty chairs.
The door opens, and I’m expecting north Mississippi media.
It’s Pitino. Alone.
He closes the door.
There’s an uncomfortable moment when we’re just standing there at the chicken strip table.
He picks up one and takes a bite. “You want one?”
“Oh, uh, no sir,” I said. At that point, the only person I had ever interviewed of note was former Alabama Lt. Governor Don Siegelman, who went to jail, and Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott. I’m a little nervous.
And then I stupidly ask – to the man who just lost the game…
“Heck of a game, huh?”
Pitino looked at me, with his mouth full, and smiled. “I guess it was,” he said, and he laughed. “It was a big big win for them. We’ll bounce back.”
Years later, believe it or not, I even had some interaction with Lane Kiffin. He was my son’s coach at Nick Saban’s camp when Jacob was 16, maybe 17. And I hate to tell you this, but Jacob actually liked him.
And I did, too. 😊
