On a late Friday night in November of 1987, 21 Mississippi College students drove north on Highway 61 to Cleveland, Mississippi. Loaded in five cars, they convoyed on the two-hour drive the night before the annual rivalry football game between MC and Delta State, two powerhouses of the Gulf South Conference. There was great excitement as the young men left the hills of Hinds County and crossed into the desolate and dark expanse of the Delta. They had mischief on their minds with no semblance of an organized plan of action.
The decision to make the journey had developed only hours earlier, starting with an idea in a dorm room that mushroomed into a frenzy like a Southern Baptist tent revival. School spirit thinly disguised an opportunity for immature naughtiness, and by the time the cars entered Bolivar County, the enthusiasm of the students had reached its apex. The vehicles approached the Delta State campus and separated in different directions. One car stopped at the entrance and the occupants jumped out, rolling mounds of toilet paper on the old oaks located on the school’s front lawn. Another group scurried to the football field and scratched “MC” in large letters over the Statesmen logo at the 50-yard line. A third bunch harbored cans of spray paint and left a trail of mocking graffiti in their wake. In a mere thirty minutes, the stealthy assault on the football foe had achieved maximum vandalism success.
Unfortunately for the vandals, the Cleveland police were having a slow night. One officer noticed out-of-town plates on an old Buick filled with youths. Stirred by this unusual activity for Cleveland, he radioed to another officer who raced to the scene. In route, he observed a separate vehicle with more young people, followed by multiple police cruisers and state highway patrol, sirens blaring, which had started chasing the cars through the county. One pursuit lasted several miles to the county penal farm. Law enforcement must have thought for a moment that an army of bad guys had invaded Cleveland. Instead, they tracked down nerdy MC students whose giddy elation had turned to unbridled fear. The cops rounded everyone up, many shaking with terror, and delivered them to the Delta State security office. Someone awakened the local justice of the peace to drive over and preside over late-night court. In one fell swoop, the students were charged and each pled guilty to a misdemeanor, malicious mischief, and each had to pay fines for the cost of the campus clean-up. The ruckus made front page news of the local newspaper, the Bolivar Commercial, and the 21 delinquents had to face the consequences from disappointed parents and MC officials. All the students were placed on school probation and had to publicly apologize for their behavior to Delta State.
Embarrassed and humiliated, those students were leaders on campus, all of whom later graduated. They became doctors, lawyers, dentists, priests, engineers, teachers and successful businessmen. The experience shook each of them, so much that no one ever talked about it again, and time has faded the memory of that fateful night. So, 37 years later, I tell the story and am thankful that my twenty brothers and I made it through that potentially disastrous episode. Who knows if the MC football team knew what happened or perhaps even played harder for our “sacrifice.” But there was one bright spot. MC won the gridiron classic by a score of 13-7, while 21 weary fans were confined to their campus dorm rooms. Go Choctaws!
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Clark Hicks is a lawyer who lives in Hattiesburg. His email is clark@hicksattorneys.com.
