Tom Patterson: He Named the Egg Bowl

This one is going to be a bit personal. Tom Patterson, who revolutionized sports journalism in Mississippi, died Wednesday night in Roseville, Calif., near Sacramento. He was 61.

Tom hired me at The Clarion-Ledger in the summer of 1979. I am forever grateful. He brought me back home.

By then, Patterson had built a sports staff as proficient as any in the country, and that's no exaggeration. Both the Clarion-Ledger and the Jackson Daily News sports sections, then the afternoon paper, won national awards with such regularity it was the norm, not the exception. We were good, and Patterson knew we were good.

Patterson, a short, elfish, bespectacled, balding and bearded man with mischievous eyes, was the center of our storm. He had ideas the way Nike has shoes. He was a whirling dervish of energy, and he demanded all around him work as hard as he.

This will tell you much about Patterson, his ideas and his ego. He didn't think Mississippi sports teams measured up to his sports sections. He wanted to show off all that talent with a special section covering a special event. Problem was, the Ole Miss and Mississippi State football teams weren't good enough at the time to qualify for a bowl game.

Kinnison Carries on Ferriss Tradition

In college baseball, 40-victory seasons are considered the gold standard. Kinnison's teams routinely win more. The story of how Kinnison, the hard-working son of a Yazoo County farmer, found his way to Delta State and eventually came back to his alma mater is one worth telling and re-telling. As you might guess, Boo Ferriss is a huge part of the story. The two form a two-man mutual admiration society. Kinnison first met Boo Ferriss when Ferriss spoke at the Benton Academy athletic banquet Kinnison's senior season. "Coach made such a strong impression, not just about baseball and sports but about life and about planning for your future. That was in 1973 and I remember thinking even then that Coach Ferriss would be a great person to play for."

But Kinnison was not college baseball material at that point. A late bloomer, he spent his first two years out of high school at Holmes Community College in Goodman, Miss., where he played football and baseball as a freshman and basketball and baseball as a sophomore. "Baseball was what I loved," Kinnison said. "I asked my coach to put in a word for me at Delta State. He said he would call Coach Ferriss." Ferriss promised Kinnison a chance to walk on and try out. "So I went to Delta State and registered and showed up for the first baseball meeting, and Coach told us we would have open tryouts," Kinnison says. "I looked around and saw about 70 guys there and that's when dawned on me that I was little bitty fish in a great big pond."

Making matters worse, Kinnison had spent the previous summer away from baseball. He needed money to pay his tuition, so he worked off-shore on an oil rig. You can't take much batting practice in the Gulf of Mexico. Kinnison was more than a little rusty when he arrived at Delta State. "Delta State was a much more advanced program than anything I had ever seen," Kinnison said. "I'll give you an example. I had never in my life hit off a pitching machine. Anybody who has ever played baseball will tell you how different that is. I don't think I impressed anybody. Coach Ferriss gave me an extended look, but I just didn't do enough."

Coming Full Circle

Twenty years ago, a group of us got together over plates of red beans and rice at Hal and Mal's. We shared a dream: a museum to showcase what Mississippians do best.


Two decades later this week, I have accepted the job of executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, succeeding my late and dear friend Michale Rubenstein, who ate the beans and rice that day, too. For the past four decades plus, I have covered Mississippi athletes and have become more and more passionate about their achievements and their major role in our state's heritage. Our museum is a showcase of what Mississippians do best. I intend to see it grow and prosper


It is a little known story of how the museum became a reality, and now seems as good a time as any to share it:


The call came late one afternoon 20 years ago. The bright voice on the other end of the line said, "Would you please hold for Commissioner Ross?" Me being a sports writer and all, I thought to myself, "Commissioner Ross of what? What league have I ticked off now?" The only commissioners I ever wrote much about back then were named Kramer and Rozelle, Ross didn't ring my bell.