Mississippi Today
About Steve Sloan, the worst you could say is he was too nice a guy
Steve Sloan, who died April 14 at the age of 79, spent five autumns (1978-82), mostly unsuccessful, as the head football coach at Ole Miss. I covered those last two seasons as the Ole Miss beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Covering losing football teams is often a thankless chore. Sloan made those two seasons bearable.
My lasting memory of Sloan: He was, without question, the nicest football coach I ever encountered and one of the nicest, most decent human beings, period. Many knowledgeable football folks would tell you Steve was too nice to be a successful football coach in the dog-eat-dog Southeastern Conference, and I honestly can't write that I disagree.
His record over five seasons in Oxford: 20 victories, 34 defeats, one tie. His 1980 team led the SEC in total offense, yet won only three games. His last two Rebel teams won a total of one SEC game, the 1981 Egg Bowl.
And there's a story there. I approached Steve the Monday before the game with an idea for a story that would need his cooperation. Honestly, I didn't think he would do it. I'm not sure I've ever covered another college football coach who would have. My proposal was that he would tell me his Egg Bowl game plan, which I would not divulge in print or otherwise until after the game. My plan was to write about the game plan – and whether it worked or not – in our Egg Bowl special section afterward.
Much to my surprise, Steve said he didn't see any harm in it. Perhaps, he just didn't see where he had anything to lose. And, on Tuesday of Egg Bowl week, he gave me a detailed game plan. He did so while chewing Vitamin C tablets the way some folks chew bubble gum, trying to fight a bad cold that had bothered him for weeks. I remember telling him he looked like death warmed over, and I remember him chuckling and telling me, “Well, buddy, you don't look so good yourself.”
Defensively, he said Ole Miss would play an eight-man front throughout the game. “We'll look like we're in a goal line defense when we're at midfield,” he said. “Our only chance is to stop the run.”
“Offensively, we know we can't run the ball on them, but we have to run it some just to keep them honest, or we'll never have time to throw,” he said. “Up front, we will double team Glen Collins (State's splendid defensive tackle). We'll use a guard and a center and if that's not enough we'll use a back in pass protection. He's that good.”
I asked him about trick plays. “We've got one pass play we got off TV the other night,” he said, describing a pass play using two running backs out of the backfield in a crossing pattern, hoping to take advantage of linebackers in pass coverage.
Everything worked. State passed only 12 times, despite the eight-man front. Ole Miss ran the ball 35 times for a meager 74 yards, but that helped quarterback John Fourcade have the time to complete 22 of 29 passes. The great Collins, double- and triple-teamed, was not in on a sack. The trick play worked to perfection for a touchdown on the Rebels' first possession.
Ole Miss, a 15-point underdog, won, 21-17. Rebel players awarded Sloan the game ball, and this was one time he earned it.
That didn't happen nearly often enough for Sloan at Ole Miss. A year later, he left for Duke, and not many Ole Miss folks were all that sad to see him go.
Mississippi football fans of that era will well remember the enthusiasm that accompanied Sloan's arrival at Ole Miss. At the time, he was considered the best bet to be Bear Bryant's successor at Alabama, where he had been Bryant's quarterback and team captain.
He was, without question, the hottest young head coach in the business. He had won at Vanderbilt, for goodness sakes. That's right. He took the Vandy head coaching job at age 28 and in his second year he guided the Commodores to a 7-3-1 record and a Peach Bowl berth. Then it was on to Texas Tech, where he took the Red Raiders to two bowl games in three seasons, including a 10-1 record and a share of the Southwest Conference championship in only his second season at Lubbock.
Then came Ole Miss, where he was then-athletic director Johnny Vaught's hand-picked choice to revive the Rebels slumping football program. The word was Bear Bryant had advised Sloan not to take the Ole Miss job, to remain in Texas until he decided to step down at Alabama. If that was indeed the case, Sloan bucked his former coach and headed to Oxford, where he was greeted as a football savior. The early returns were good. His first recruiting classes were rated among the nation's best. That recruiting success never translated into victories.
What happened? Nearly half a century later, this might be an oversimplification, but here goes: Both at Vandy and at Texas Tech, Sloan's defenses were headed by a future coaching legend, a guy named Bill Parcells. Yes, that Bill Parcells, a two-time Super Bowl champion coach. And Parcells was slated to come with Sloan to become the Rebels' defensive coordinator. Never happened. The head coaching job at Air Force came open, and Parcells took it.
So Sloan came to Ole Miss without Parcells, who was not only a defensive whiz but also the “bad cop” to Sloan's “good cop” at both Vandy and Texas Tech. In retrospect, Sloan's Ole Miss teams lacked the defensive grit, discipline and overall toughness of his Vanderbilt and Texas Tech teams. Even Sloan's worse Ole Miss teams could move the ball and score; they just could not stop anybody.
Had Parcells come to Ole Miss, things surely would have been different. We'll never know, but I believe had Sloan, after losing Parcells, retained Jim Carmody from Ken Cooper's Ole Miss staff, he would have won more games.
That's all conjecture at this point, but this is not: If the worst thing anybody can say about you is that you were too nice, that not all bad. In fact, that's not bad at all.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1945
April 30, 1945
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, known as the “godmother of rock ‘n' roll,” made history by becoming the first gospel artist to rocket up the R&B charts with her gospel hit, “Strange Things Happening Every Day.” In so doing, she paved the way for a strange new sound.
“Rock ‘n' roll was bred between the church and the nightclubs in the soul of a queer Black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe,” National Public Radio wrote. “She was there before Elvis, Little Richard and Johnny Cash swiveled their hips and strummed their guitars. It was Tharpe, the godmother of rock ‘n' roll, who turned this burgeoning musical style into an international sensation.”
Born in Arkansas, the musical prodigy grew up in Mississippi in the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination that welcomed all-out music and praise. By age 6, she was performing alongside her mandolin-playing mother in a traveling evangelistic troupe. By the mid-1920s, she and her mother had joined the Great Migration to Chicago, where they continued performing.
“As Tharpe grew up, she began fusing Delta blues, New Orleans jazz and gospel music into what would become her signature style,” NPR wrote.
Her hard work paid off when she joined the Cotton Club Revue in New York City. She was only 23. Before the end of 1938, she recorded gospel songs for Decca, including “Rock Me,” which became a huge hit and made her an overnight sensation. Little Richard, Aretha Franklin and Jerry Lee Lewis have all cited her as an influence.
“Sister Rosetta played guitar like the men I was listening to, only smoother, with bigger notes,” said singer-songwriter Janis Ian. “And of course, personally, any female player was a big influence on me, because there were so few.”
After hearing her successors on the radio, Tharpe was quoted as saying, “Oh, these kids and rock and roll — this is just sped up rhythm and blues. I've been doing that forever.”
On the eve of a 1973 recording session, she died of a stroke and was buried in an unmarked grave. In the decades that followed, she finally began to receive the accolades that had eluded her in life.
In 2007, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and money was raised for her headstone. Eleven years later, she was inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame.
“She was, and is,” NPR concluded, “an unmatched artist.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
House agrees to work requirement, Senate concedes covering more people in Medicaid expansion deal
With minutes to spare before a Monday-night deadline, House negotiators conceded a Senate demand that Medicaid expansion would include a strict work requirement for those covered — a requirement not likely to be approved by the federal government.
The Senate had already backed off its initial proposal that would only cover the poorest of the poor, would still leave tens of thousands of poor working Mississippians uninsured and would have turned down billions in federal money to cover the costs.
House and Senate negotiators agreed to a deal that would expand Medicaid to about 200,000 people who make up to 138% of the federal poverty level, roughly $20,000 for an individual. It would require recipients to prove they work for at least 25 hours a week.
The plan will be a “hybrid,” as first proposed by the House. People up to 99% of the federal poverty level would be covered by traditional Medicaid. Those making 100% to 138% of FPL would be covered with subsidized private insurance plans from the federal exchange.
Neither House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, a Republican from Hattiesburg, nor Senate Medicaid Chair Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven, answered questions from reporters at the Capitol about the agreement on Monday night.
“A compromise requires concessions between the chambers,” Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said in an earlier statement. “The Senate requires a real work requirement, but our plan now covers individuals up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.”
The Affordable Care Act, the federal legislation that allows states to expand Medicaid coverage, does not authorize work requirements. However, states can seek a federal waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to implement them.
CMS under the Trump administration did sign off on some states using work requirements, but under the Biden administration, the federal agency has not approved requests and rescinded the ones that had been approved.
The House's original plan directed state officials to seek a waiver for work requirements, but would have expanded Medicaid even if the federal agency denied it. House leaders previously pointed out that people with income above the federal poverty level are likely working.
The Senate, however, drew a hard line that it would only agree to an expansion plan that contained work requirements — a stance that could at the least delay expanded coverage, perhaps for years, or prevent it from ever happening.
READ MORE: House, Senate leaders swap Medicaid expansion proposals as Monday night deadline nears
If CMS denies Mississippi's waiver for a work requirement, the compromise proposal directs the state Division of Medicaid to apply for a work requirement waiver each year the first denial.
It also directs state officials to immediately apply for a waiver if CMS starts approving work requirements in other states.
Senate leaders have expressed optimism that the Biden administration will be so pleased with longtime Medicaid expansion holdout Mississippi making an effort that it would approve a work requirement, or that the conservative federal 5th Circuit Court would approve it if litigated.
Work requirements in states that previously had them proved to be costly and ineffective, with a large amount of costs going into administration of the work requirements instead of medical services.
The agreed proposal will likely bring an end to several days of House and Senate negotiators trading proposals back and forth with one another behind closed doors.
Right up to the 8 p.m. Monday deadline, it was unclear if legislative leaders would reach a compromise. They signed the agreement with only minutes to spare.
Reporters, lobbyists and advocates gathered at the Capitol waiting to see if lawmakers could broker a deal to establish what many believe could be the most transformative state policy since Gov. William Winter's Education Reform Act of 1982.
But despite earlier vows by House and Senate leaders to negotiate Medicaid expansion in public, the final details were worked out behind closed doors and negotiators declined comment Monday night.
Now that the negotiators have signed off on an agreement, the Capitol's two chambers have until Wednesday to either approve the proposal, reject it or send it back to negotiators for further work. The 2024 legislative session is expected to end within days, although lawmakers have already had to push back deadlines for agreeing to a state budget.
The Medicaid expansion proposal places a 3% tax on managed care organizations to cover the state's costs, and the Legislature's rules require a three-fifths majority of the lawmakers in both chambers to approve bills that enact taxes.
But the actual threshold the two chambers likely need to achieve is a two-thirds majority, needed to override a potential veto from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, a longtime opponent of expansion.
Passage of the compromise, particularly by a wide margin, may be difficult in both chambers. House Democrats, who support Medicaid expansion, have threatened to oppose any bill with a work requirement. Any expansion measure is a tough sell in the Senate, and its earlier more austere plan barely garnered a two-thirds vote.
Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, on Monday night said he was glad the two chambers came to an agreement and he looks forward to seeing more details.
“I am grateful we are finally at a point where we are working to provide access to health care to Mississippians who desperately need it and have been waiting for it for a long time,” Simmons said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Law enforcement officers’ oversight bill heads to governor’s desk
The Mississippi Senate passed legislation Monday to give the state's officer certification board the power to investigate law enforcement misconduct.
House Bill 691, the revised version of which passed the House Saturday, is now headed to the desk of Gov. Tate Reeves.
The bill comes in the wake of an investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times into sheriffs and deputies across the state over allegations of sexual abuse, torture and corruption. The reporting also revealed how a “Goon Squad” of officers operated for two decades in Rankin County.
Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said if the governor signs the bill, he anticipates the Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training would hire a few investigators to investigate matters and make recommendations.
The bill would enable the board to establish a hearing panel on any law enforcement officer “for whom the board believes there is a basis for reprimand, suspension, cancellation of, or recalling the certification of a law enforcement officer. The hearing panel shall provide its written findings and recommendations to the board.”
In addition, deputies, sheriffs and state law enforcement would join police officers in the requirement to have 20 hours of training each year. Those who fail to get such training could lose their certifications.
Other changes would take place as well. Each year, the licensing board would have to report on its activities to the Legislature and the governor.
The bill calls for a 13-member board with the governor having six appointments – two police chiefs, two sheriffs, a district attorney and the head of the law enforcement training academy.
Other members include the attorney general, the public safety commissioner, the head of the Highway Patrol, and the presidents of the police chiefs association, the constable association, the Mississippi Campus Law Enforcement Association and the sheriff's association (or designee).
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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