CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Unexpected Ministry of the Cowbell

WHEN I WAS SEVEN years old, my parents took me to a basketball game at Mississippi State, my daddy’s alma mater. The primary purpose of our trip was to watch Sister, who was a student at MSU, perform in a play at the student union, but Daddy also managed to get some tickets to that weekend’s basketball game. I have no idea who we played, but I do remember that I had a killer earache and that Mama stuffed cotton in my left ear while we sat in our rafter-level seats at the brand-spankin’ new Humphrey Coliseum.

Seriously. Between the cotton in my ear, my How to Roller-Skate T-shirt, and the fact that I probably imitated the Fonz and replied with “Ayyyyyy” to anyone who spoke to me before I stuck my nose back into whichever Boxcar Children book I was reading at the time, I think it’s safe to say that I spent a significant portion of third grade standing at the intersection of Nerdy and Oblivious.

That weekend at State turned out to be like countless other short trips I took with my parents when I was younger—save one critical detail. Because at some point while I sat at that basketball game, cotton eared and all, I decided that I was a Bulldog. Until then I’d vacillated between cheering for State and cheering for Ole Miss, the Bulldogs’ in-state archrival about a hundred miles up the road. Many of my relatives were (and are) dyed-in-the-wool Rebels—I even have a cousin who was a starter on the football team in the early ’70s—and my brother was planning to enroll at Ole Miss the following fall. I’d listened to Joe wax poetic about Archie Manning all my life, and I’d heard my cousins yell Ole Miss’s “Hotty Toddy” cheer (with some creative substitutions for four-letter words) for as long as I could remember.

Considering the family dynamics, it probably would have been easier to be an Ole Miss fan and join the vocal majority of my kinfolk. But loyalty to my daddy and my sister won out; I decided at that basketball game that I was going to err on the side of maroon.

It’s a little astonishing to me that I have any recollection of making a choice, but Sister says it shouldn’t surprise me at all. Her theory is that growing up in Mississippi and eventually picking a team to root for is sort of like being baptized: you never forget the moment it happens, and there’s no turning back after you take the plunge.

The complex dynamics in the State–Ole Miss rivalry eluded me when I was a little girl; I just thought that the red-and-blue team waved flags during their games and the maroon-and-white team rang cowbells. Now, however, I know that if you dig way down to the core of why the battle between the two teams often gets so heated, you’ll find some good, old-fashioned conflict between the classes.

Many State folks pride themselves on being hardworking, salt-of-the-earth people who don’t mind getting their hands dirty in the interest of the greater good. Ole Miss, on the other hand, produces most of Mississippi’s doctors and lawyers, and as a result, they have a reputation for being cultured, well-to-do, and according to some of their alumni, better educated than their Bulldog brethren to the south. In fact, a few years ago, when MSU football coach Dan Mullen began a little good-natured gamesmanship by referring to Ole Miss as “the school up north”—TSUN for short—some Ole Miss faithful fired back by referring to State as “the school beneath us.”

So there you have it. Make of it what you will.

For the longest time I thought the rivalry developed once the two teams started playing football against each other in 1901, but it actually started much earlier than that. According to Sports Illustrated writer Ed Hinton, the battle between the two schools began in 1872, when the Mississippi legislature tried to attach an agriculture school to Ole Miss. They found a dean, planned a curriculum, and after all the arrangements were made, an unexpected problem arose: nobody showed up for class. Hinton quotes Dr. David Sansing, then a professor of history at Ole Miss, as saying that “the sons of the industrial classes didn’t want to go up to Ole Miss, where they would have to go to school with the sons of the gentry.”

Just for the record, Sister and I have often speculated that at least a couple of those students who refused to go to school in Oxford are bound to have been some of our daddy’s ancestors. He comes from a mighty long line of stubborn, principled men.

Anyway, Hinton goes on to say that since no one wanted to attend an agriculture school in Oxford, “an entirely new school was created in Starkville . . . [and] quickly acquired a popular nickname: People’s College. No vestiges of class structure, such as those that prevailed at Ole Miss, were allowed at what would become Mississippi State.”

By the way, sometimes when I need to smile, I like to find Hinton’s article on the Internet and reread that last sentence. It sums up everything I love about Mississippi State. And just to be clear: Ole Miss is a great school. Oxford is a wonderful place. Some of my closest friends are Rebels. State just happens to be where I belong. And somehow I knew that when I was seven years old.

Once my allegiance to the ’Dogs was settled, Daddy wasted no time capitalizing on my interest in All Things Maroon and White. We went to alumni association meetings in Myrtlewood, tuned in to a local AM station to listen to Jack Cristil’s play-by-play of football and basketball games, and started a tradition of going to all of the home football games together when I was in seventh grade. Now that I’m a grown-up, it’s not lost on me that Daddy always made time to take me. His job at the Cooperative Extension Service was a demanding one, and he also officiated high school football games every Friday night during football season, but as sure as the sun, he’d wake up early on Saturday mornings and drive us to Starkville. Our season tickets were his promise to spend time with me, and he never broke his word.

Mama would usually pack us a lunch of fried chicken, potato salad, and sweet tea, and once we arrived on State’s campus, we’d meet up with some of Daddy’s Extension Service buddies for a tailgate lunch. Everybody shared whatever they’d brought—hot dogs, burgers, chips, dips, brownies—and after the ladies finished setting up a makeshift buffet table, it always looked like we were rehearsing for Thanksgiving dinner. I loved to sit and soak up the adults’ stories about their days at State, and they never made it more than about three sentences before someone would mention the name of an MSU great: Shorty McWilliams, Rockey Felker, Bailey Howell, Johnie Cooks, and so many more. Tailgating was always a history lesson.

Daddy and I usually walked into the stadium just as warm-ups started—a habit that has stayed with me through three decades and countless games. We probably saw the Bulldogs lose more than we saw them win, but their end-of-season record wasn’t really the point. Those days at Scott Field were much more about family and loyalty and fellowship. Winning was just gravy, really.

With one exception.

Once a year—usually on the Saturday after Thanksgiving—the Bulldogs and the Rebels would play the annual Egg Bowl in Jackson. And winning that game? Oh, it mattered. Losing meant I’d have to listen to my brother and my cousins assert their gridiron superiority for what seemed like a sweet forever. Losing meant Joe would print Christmas cards of the scoreboard, and I’d have to smile and laugh it off and pretend like I didn’t care. Losing meant I’d have to humble myself in front of my friend Jon at school on Monday morning. One year, in fact, when State lost after a gust of wind suddenly stopped a potentially game-winning field goal in midair and slammed it to the ground, Jon and his daddy actually made a huge sign and staked it across our front yard.

Jon’s daddy was a Southern Baptist preacher and a lifelong Rebel fan. Apparently, in the Lord’s eyes, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

(I smiled when I typed that, by the way.)

(I promise.)

So winning the Egg Bowl? That was an infinitely preferable option. Winning meant Daddy and I could walk back to our car after the game without listening to some overserved Ole Miss students scream, “COW COLLEGE!” at any State fans who happened to pass by. Winning meant the Sunday edition of the Clarion-Ledger would be chock-full of Mississippi State goodness that I could pin to my bulletin board. Winning meant I could wear my snazzy MSU V-neck sweater to church. Winning meant bragging rights for the next year, and I knew from experience that those bragging rights had a way of making life just a little bit easier.

I don’t think Daddy and I missed a single Egg Bowl between my junior high days and my senior year in high school. A few years later, when I was a junior at State, I made what would be my final Egg Bowl pilgrimage to Jackson. The game was being moved back to the schools’ campuses the next year, and I wanted to be there for the last Veterans Stadium hurrah. There was a horrible, bench-clearing brawl before the game even started, and after four quarters of agonizingly slow football, the Rebels were victorious. I would tell you that it was a super-fun day, but that would be a lie. It was miserable.

Over the next few years my Egg Bowl attendance was spotty at best; I didn’t trust myself to maintain a proper perspective if I went to the game in Oxford (especially if, heaven forbid, we lost), and after I got married and moved to Louisiana, it wasn’t exactly convenient to make the five-hour journey to Starkville.

Once we were in Birmingham, it seemed like it would be easier than ever to get back in the swing of going to the games. But then I got pregnant. And then I had a baby who eventually became a toddler. And despite the fact that I’d always seen mamas with young kids at the games and thought it would be super easy to juggle caring for a youngster with watching the revelry on the field, it turned out I was dead wrong. The good Lord did not gift me with that particular skill set.

Once Alex hit six years old, however, traveling with him to games became absolutely delightful. And after an especially fun trip to watch State play Florida in 2009, we decided that the little man was ready for his very first Egg Bowl. I didn’t know how he would handle the State vs. Ole Miss scenario since he has always felt a certain degree of cousin-prompted loyalty to the Rebels, but I figured we’d give it a go and see what happened.

The day before the game we drove to Memphis to celebrate my brother’s birthday. My sister-in-law Janie was surprising him with a party that Friday night, and since Sister and Barry were going to be in Memphis, too, we figured it was a perfect opportunity for the MSU branch of the family tree to wake up at the crack of light on Saturday morning, stop by Starbucks, and then caravan to Starkville for the game.

Sister and I love to go to games together whenever we can, and we have made some mighty fine memories over the years. Once, in the days before I realized that wrangling a toddler at a sporting event was not necessarily my forte, Sister and I traveled to Tuscaloosa—with eleven-month-old Alex in tow—and watched State’s men’s basketball team play Alabama for the SEC regular season title. Bulldog fans packed out the upper deck, so the atmosphere was festive, to say the least. Sister and Alex even ran into Bulldog coaching legend Jackie Sherrill when they were making a few loops around the concourse right after halftime, and in my opinion it was a sign that the Lord had granted the Bulldogs an extra measure of favor. Sure enough, the ’Dogs won in overtime, and Sister gave Alex a celebratory bottle while his mama (that would be me) jumped up and down in the aisle of Coleman Coliseum like some sort of hillbilly game-show contestant. It was a fantastic day.

Five and a half years later, we were hoping to make some maroon-colored memories with Alex all over again.

By six o’clock that Saturday morning, we were pulling onto Highway 78 outside Memphis so we could make the 11:30 kickoff in Starkville. Sister and Barry were in one car; David, Alex, and I were in another. From Olive Branch to Tupelo, cars zoomed past with various forms of Rebel and Bulldog paraphernalia flapping in the chilly November air, and once we turned onto Highway 45 in Tupelo, we joined a slower game-day processional that moved through some of my favorite Mississippi towns: Verona, Okolona, West Point. Traffic was slow, but it was moving, and even though there were no girls sitting on the backs of convertibles waving to the crowd, it might as well have been a parade. Every once in a while we’d hear somebody ringing a cowbell or screaming, “Go Rebels” while we waited at a red light, and I wondered how many times a variation of that scene had played out over the years.

I’m pretty sure it was more than twice.

We stopped outside West Point so we could fill up our respective cars, and within seconds of our arrival, a Hummer limousine pulled in behind us. Ole Miss flags flanked the back windows, and the passengers crawled out holding monogrammed Tervis tumblers (full to the brim with the passengers’ beverages of choice) and sporting the latest Tory Burch tunics. As they dug through their Louis Vuitton cross-body bags for their lip gloss, Sister and I started to laugh. We were both nursing the last of our Venti Pike Place coffees from Starbucks, wearing our finest Old Navy duds, and singing the praises of some crazy-comfortable fleece-lined clogs to which we are both completely addicted—not to mention that we were both carrying large metal cowbells with welded handles in our sensible Stein Mart purses. We were an unintended study in State and Ole Miss contrasts, and after the fellas finished filling up the cars, I took one more look at that Hummer limo before I grinned at Sister and said two of our very favorite words: “Go ’Dogs.”

“Go ’Dogs,” she replied.

Forty-five minutes later we pulled into our parking places on State’s campus, and even though it wasn’t quite nine o’clock in the morning, the atmosphere was electric. The next hour and a half flew by; we greeted the players at Dawg Walk, welcomed the Rebels to the stadium with some (mostly) good-natured cowbell ringing, strolled through the bookstore, visited with my friend Daphne and her family, and sampled a few of Daph’s mini quiches and fried catfish filets. I don’t want to overstate the impact of a fried catfish filet on a football game, but my personal experience has been that if some fried catfish can’t get your game-day motor running, you might be due for some service.

That’s all I’m saying.

Around ten fifteen we settled into our seats in the stadium, at which point Sister and I noticed an especially vocal Rebel fan to our left. We both had flashbacks to a couple of years before, when an elderly woman who was cheering for the Rebels sat about four rows below us. When Ole Miss scored a first quarter touchdown, the woman stood up, turned around, cupped her hands around her mouth, and screamed, “HOTTY TODDY!” at the section where we were sitting. I’ve been in situations where State fans fired back at an outspoken Rebel or maybe even responded with a little hostility, but on that day the State folks didn’t say a word. However, when State scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and tied the game, the indignant Rebel threw her hands up in the air, gave the Ole Miss coach a piece of her mind, and then slammed her stadium seat shut. She glared at our section, gathered her belongings, and marched up the stairs to a chorus of spontaneous applause from the four hundred or so State fans who had witnessed her performance in the first quarter and were none too sad to see her pack her toys and go home.

I don’t judge that woman for one second, by the way. I’m all too aware that, during football season, I’m pretty much one play away from a total nervous breakdown at any given point in time. And if you think I’m kidding, just ask my daddy, who had to sit with me at Long John Silver’s in Starkville and talk me off the emotional ledge after a particularly nasty loss to Auburn in the mid ’80s.

Sister and I need not have worried at the 2009 Egg Bowl, though, because the pretty Rebel fan to our left was a nonfactor. She yelled for her team, which was certainly to be expected, but when the Bulldogs scored seventeen points in the third quarter and jumped out to a fourteen-point lead, our Rebel neighbor gave up cheering and comforted herself by talking on her phone, then resorting to some rapid-fire texting for the remainder of the game. It’s a shame the Rebels didn’t have her thumbs playing on offense—they were blazing fast and probably could have run about a 4.3 forty-yard dash.

The girl acted oblivious to a positively raucous Scott Field, which was the loudest I’ve ever heard it. Eventually the noise hit a level that couldn’t possibly increase, so people took their cheering to the next level and started to jump. It didn’t matter how old they were, how young they were, or how fit they were—everyone jumped. And by the beginning of the fourth quarter, the stadium wasn’t so much a building as it was a living, moving, cowbell-ringing creature. The sound was like a thousand thunderstorms pounding on a thousand tin roofs—all set to the rhythm of techno music blaring through giant speakers. It couldn’t have been fun for the loyal Rebels who were still scattered throughout the stands. But for the Bulldogs?

Oh, make no mistake.

It was glorious.

The smile on our little guy’s face was as wide as the Mississippi River as he soaked in the craziness and the chaos of Davis Wade Stadium, and one look at him let me know the die was cast. He was a Bulldog too. It was oddly sweet to know that the matter of his college loyalty was settled—at least for the time being. Mock me if you must, but there’s a definite “awwww” factor to knowing your child has decided that he’s a part of your team, so to speak.

Once the game was over, Sister, Alex, and I stayed behind to savor the postgame atmosphere while David and Barry made a beeline for Daph’s tailgating tent. The three of us stood in front of our seats and watched players circle the field, holding the Egg Bowl trophy high above their heads while the fight song ricocheted off the field house and wrapped the bleachers in the sounds of “Hail State.” Eventually we joined the crowd of folks who were slowly walking down the south ramp of the stadium. Alex hopped and jumped more than he walked, and every once in a while Sister or I would have to remind him to stay with us and not get too far ahead. The maroon hood of his Mississippi State sweatshirt twisted and danced all the way down the ramp; there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he’d caught the fever.

And the only prescription?

MORE COWBELL.

I’ve heard my pastor say more than once that, if we don’t keep it in check, college football can be an idol—especially in the South, where national championships abound and people can quote a prospective quarterback’s passing percentage easier than they can quote a passage of Scripture.

I know exactly what he means. I have a personality that tends to err on the side of obsessive, and if I’m not careful, I can get caught up in the hype of a new season, in the off-the-field message-board drama, in the prospect of championships and trophies and recruiting dominance. And that’s why the 2009 Egg Bowl—a day when the Bulldogs won 41–27, a day that turned out to be one of my favorite memories ever—is a perfect picture of what I want for our boy and what I don’t want for him. All at the same time.

Confused yet?

Stay with me.

I will absolutely love it if Alex grows up and wants to go to college at State. I will be thrilled to pieces if he is the third generation of our family to earn a degree there. I will be beside myself if, ten years from now, David and I spend five or six fall weekends a year in Starkville, hanging out with our son and cheering for the Bulldogs and serving plates of pregame fried catfish to him and to his buddies. It would tickle me to no end.

But.

I want so much more for Alex Hudson than thinking the end-all, be-all of life is to sit in a stadium and watch twenty-two guys battle it out on a field. I want so much more for him than viewing the numbers on a scoreboard as a gauge for happiness. I want so much more for him than basing the sum total of his identity on an institution, a sports team, a career, or a player.

Because what I want for him more than anything else is for him to follow Jesus with every bit of the fervor, passion, and excitement we saw that day in Starkville. If he is going to completely abandon himself to any purpose, any cause, any greater good, please, Lord, let it be Jesus.

Please.

From the time Alex was a baby, I’ve prayed Ephesians 3:16-19 for him: “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

As a mama, it’s good for me to remember that passage. I mean, I’m crazy about football, but I have sense enough to know that Paul wasn’t writing to the church at Ephesus about the roots that run underneath the turf at Scott Field, you know?

Undoubtedly there’s a time and a place for game-day enthusiasm. There’s a time and a place for team loyalty, for family tradition, for ringing a cowbell, and for jumping up and down in a stadium.

But I pray that those things are never the objects of our little guy’s worship.

I guess it’s not too far outside the realm of possibility that by the time Alex is an adult, there will be some church somewhere that incorporates cowbells, Jumbotrons, and “Sandstorm” into their music ministry (though I pray my sweet mama isn’t alive to see it; she still hasn’t gotten over the fact that we’re members of a church here in Birmingham where drums and instruments that require electricity are a regular part of our worship services). Even so, I hope Alex knows that a Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium will always pale in comparison to knowing, loving, and serving the living God. I hope he knows that there’s no greater adventure than following wherever the Lord leads.

And I just wanted to go on the Official Spiritual Legacy Record and make that perfectly clear. Because as a friend of mine said one time, “Football is a great game, but it’s an awful god.”

However, I think it’s worth noting that if the Bulldogs can beat the Rebels every November until Jesus returns—well, there’s not a doubt in my mind that it will make eternity all the sweeter.

Especially since I’m fully convinced that there will be some cowbells mixed in with all those harps and lyres and trumpets in heaven.

And I’m pretty sure that Sister and Daddy would agree.

Go ’Dogs.