JACKSON - As mentioned in my last column, I do bleed Mississippi State maroon.
And as mentioned in that last column, I sat in the driving rain Thanksgiving night with my soon-to-be Ole Miss daughter watching Jackie Sherrill coach his last game.
To say the least, she enjoyed the ride home more than I did.
But when the word finally came Monday that Green Bay Packer assistant and former Alabama Crimson Tide All-American Sylvester Croom had accepted the job as MSU's 31st head football coach, I found myself just a little bit prouder to be a Bulldog.
In hiring Croom, MSU became the first Southeastern Conference school to hire a black head football coach. That milestone reached in a state with as much racial baggage as Mississippi is something of which we can all be proud. State has a history in that regard.
My dad always talked about the courage it took for former MSU President Dean Colvard to sneak the 1963 Bulldog basketball team out of state to play Loyola in the NCAA tournament against the bellowing of segregationists in the Legislature. Years later, I would come to know Red Stroud and others from that 1963 team.
"Heck, we just wanted to play," Stroud told me years later after a successful high school coaching career in Scott County. "We weren't worried about the racial aspects, we just wanted to compete."
Amen, Coach Stroud.
As a Mississippian interested in our state's image, I'm delighted at the progressive choice made by MSU President Charles Lee and Athletic Director Larry Templeton to put Mississippi State on the cutting edge of diversity in the Southeastern Conference and across the nation. But as a Bulldog fan, diversity isn't worth a rip unless the coach in question can win.
Because in the final analysis, winning is what it's about in big-time sports. Mississippi sports fans are like sports fans across the country. Like Red Stroud was 40 years ago as a young Bulldog basketball star. They want to see their teams play and compete and win.
Rob Evans and Rod Barnes at Ole Miss and James Green at USM have proven that Mississippi "Big 3" fans will support a black head coach in major sports if he or she can field a competitive team.
Croom will face the same challenge.
Sports has done more to successfully integrate Mississippi society than all the court orders in the world. From flag football to the Super Bowl, Mississippians from diverse backgrounds have come together under the broad tent of sports to learn good lessons together.
People who know him personally tell me Sylvester Croom is an intelligent, motivated and highly principled man who has high expectations of himself and those around him. He was a student of Bear Bryant, both as a player and a coach at Alabama.
Croom is a minister's son. His career as a player and a coach hasn't been plagued by "character issues."
For Mississippi State, the big question is whether the hiring of a black coach will present repercussions in terms of season ticket sales, heavy-hitter athletic contributor donations, recruiting, etc. Again, the experiences of Evans, Barnes and Green suggest that such concerns have little or no validity.
Sylvester Croom is a good football coach. Mississippi State needs a good football coach to build on what Sherrill accomplished over the last 13 seasons - including, apparently, a likely NCAA probation. Croom faces a big task. He will need the focus to be on rebuilding the football program, not his race.
My bet is that Mississippi State people will unite behind Croom and see one color - Bulldog maroon - as they should.
