I was enjoying a nice evening at The Chimes on Tuesday night when the phone call came. I had just finished my two dozen oysters and luckily I only was on my second beer when my services were required.
My friend, who happens to be my boss, drove his truck into the construction site across from the Union and into a huge slab of mud.
This may not be a problem if he had a four-wheel drive SUV, but he doesn’t. He drives a two-wheel drive Chevy S-10, which doesn’t fare well in the mud. He was helplessly stuck, and to make matters worse, I had on flip flops.
After five minutes of finding a way to slide through the mud to tie a rope around his axle (it took that long because I had on nice clothes), we finally were able to rescue his truck from the dismal muck.
This story has no relevance on a sports page, until you begin to examine the parallels of his S-10 and the Ole Miss football program.
Ole Miss is a shiny red and blue Chevy S-10, cruising along the highway in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi – and headed nowhere.
At first glance, it seems like a nice ride, especially if you are sheltered in an area where your only competition is a school in the butt crack of the South – Mississippi State in Starkville.
Just like my friend though, Ole Miss fans assume their program resembles a brand new four-wheel drive SUV, and they act like it.
They tailgate in The Grove (which is a sight to see, I must say) and dress up in their Sunday bests – all the while attempting to fool themselves into thinking they support something important.
If that is not enough, they whip out their fine china and silverware for their food, which is no doubt expensive.
It almost reminds me of the short man who is insecure (you know, the Napoleonic syndrome) and buys himself a huge SUV, maybe even a Hummer, in hopes that at least some people may see past his height (or lack thereof) and think of him as important.
The Rebels put on a facade – maybe it’s subconsciously, maybe it isn’t. And who can blame them? They are stuck in the mud, but they don’t want anyone to know, and they don’t want to realize it.
They want the rest of the college football world to think that their Hummer is just resting in the mud to show its power and ability. But who are they kidding?
It has been 40 years since Ole Miss won the SEC title, but if you go to Oxford this weekend and judge by the actions and appearance of the Rebels’ fans, you’d think they are riding an unprecedented wave of winning tradition.
They will have their expensive cars, clothes and tailgating setups lined up throughout the small, quaint village of Oxford.
They will scream out “Hotty Toddy!” like it means something to you or anyone else.
And they will say something about their savior, Eli Manning, and how he, and he alone, will pull the Rebels out of the swampy grime, something in which only the most enlightened Reb fans will even admit they are stuck.
They will strive to disguise their mediocre program and pass it off as a shiny SUV. But the truth is, the Ole Miss football program is a truck – an S-10 at best, just like my friend’s.
But unlike me saving my friend from the grasp of the mud slab, Eli cannot save Ole Miss from the grasp of mediocrity.