GO TIGERS! An Ole Miss Fan’s Response to Coach Prime’s Invitation

Fellow Mississippians, Coach Deion Sanders is calling on us all to come and support his Jackson State Tigers against Prairie View in the SWAC Championship this weekend and I, for one, intend to answer. I’m an Ole Miss fan and former player, but I’ll be in Jackson this weekend cheering with as many people as I can muster.

Because Coach Prime is right.

“This is one time, this is one moment where Mississippi State, Mississippi Valley, Alcorn, Ole Miss… Southern Miss… I just want you in the stands to represent because this is Mississippi versus everybody else. That’s what this is.”

His words moved me. They’re to the point and true not only when it comes to Mississippi athletics but, indeed, concerning all things in our beleaguered state.

In Mississippi, it is so often us against the world. So often, the rest of the nation maligns our people by treating us as irrelevant hicks. They sneer and remind us of our perpetual status as “last at everything” and almost seem to relish in our plight. Unfortunately, we tend to make things even harder on ourselves by fighting among each other instead of supporting each other against a callous outside…