Formative memories

Over the weekend, I asked myself why I was so drawn to the Coach Lane Kiffin story, especially since I have no strong opinions or feelings about Kiffin, Ole Miss or LSU. I realized that the LSU-Ole Miss rivalry has been part of my memory bank since I was 9 years old.

Ole Miss and LSU were dominant teams. From January ’53 to January ’65, LSU and/or Ole Miss were in nine of thirteen Sugar Bowls. In 1959, LSU was the only team to beat Ole Miss, 7-3, thanks to The Punt Return by Billy Cannon, who won LSU’s only Heisman Trophy. Ole Miss defeated LSU 21-0 in a Sugar Bowl re-match and were considered by many to be the national champions.

For most Americans, the weekend Kiffin saga was lost amid other events. For ardent football fans, it was about the new bidding war for coaches and players brought on by “the portal,” confirming major college football as a professional sport. Because of my age and geography, I knew the historic LSU/Ole Miss rivalry would make Kifflin’s situation a train wreck in the making.

For the 50th anniversary of The Punt Return, Wright Thompson wrote a definitive article about Cannon (1937-2018) in the October 20, 2009 edition of ESPN’s Outside the Lines (OTL), “The Redemption of Billy Cannon.”

From “The Lane Kiffin saga: Who exactly is to blame for the sordid mess at Ole Miss and LSU?“, by Dana ONeil, CNN, December 2, 2025.

The Catch

I saw my first MLB game in 1961, at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field. The Giants beat the Reds 6-0. Willie Mays hit a home run high against the screen in left field. Mays died yesterday at 93. I’ve always thought he and Hank Aaron were the second and third greatest Alabamians, behind Helen Keller.

My phone alerted me that Mays had died, sending me to a Washington Post obituary by Paul Duggan. I learned more about “the catch,” Mays’ iconic catch of a 450-foot Vic Wertz fly ball in the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds, an image of which is now on the trophy presented to the Series MVP.

Two seasons in the military during the Korean War may have kept Mays from winning the race with Aaron to break Babe Ruth’s career home run record. Duggan’s obituary is rich, but my mind kept going back to “the catch,” which describes not only Mays’ amazing athletic skill, but also his mental acuity:

“Soon as it got hit, I knew I’d catch this ball,” he explained. “ … The problem was Larry Doby on second base. … Suppose I stop and turn and throw. I will get nothing on the ball. No momentum going into my throw,” and Doby might have scored, giving his team the lead. “To keep my momentum, to get it working for me, I have to turn very hard and short and throw the ball from exactly the point that I caught it.”

Sports scribes would write that Mr. Mays made the lightning throw instinctively, a term that irked him. “All the while I’m runnin’ back, I’m planning how to get off that throw,” he told Hirsch. “The momentum goes into my turn and up through my legs and into my throw.”

Doby stopped at third base and, three batters later, the top of the eighth inning ended with the game still knotted. In the 10th, Mr. Mays walked, stole second and scored on a home run, and the underdog Giants went on to sweep the Series.

From another appropriate Juneteenth read: “Willie Mays, Baseball’s Electrifying Player of Power and Grace, Is Dead at 93,” by Richard Goldstein, The New York Times, June 18, 2024. (It is fitting that Mays lived to see the year ’24.)