#4

What is number 4? Just a taller ledge to fall from.

A small town coverboy quarterback with a modest approach to his newfound fame. A veteran coach with a history of steady success, but still searching for a defining achievement to fill out his legacy. A promising would-be king assistant coach with an alumni pedigree. Odd, home-grown musical tributes with a cult following. A lazy national press stroking high expectations on little more than what can be found in the first 10 pages of a media guide-- returning starters, an home-heavy schedule without any big names and a pleasant pre-packaged narrative around a coach and quarterback. Around the forbidden pleasures of contraband beer in the Grove, there are even casual whispers of a young basketball phenom who might open a second front in an all-out Rebel assault on the national sports scene. It’s 1970 and the Rebels are finally going to rise again. Of course they are. Look, even the slick Yankee media types think so.

On October 12, 1970, William F. Reed sang the refrain of the first verse of the Manning legend for Sports Illustrated. In it, he retells a story about a guy in Tupelo who was about to jump off a bridge.

“Wait,” said a friend. “Think about your family and your religion.”

“Don’t have any family,” the jumper said. “And I don’t believe in religion.”

“Well,” said his friend desperately. “Then think about Archie.”

“Archie who?”

“Jump, you S.O.B. Jump.”

Even if he doesn’t jump, the story ends well before a four-count. If the intervention on the bridge is success, the missionary friend no doubt will go on to indoctrinate our jumper into the legend of Archie and the glory of Ole Miss. The convert, now fully stocked with both Archie and religion all in one neat, focused package marked “reasons to live,” will go onto witness what is, by now, four decades of heartburn no sweaty hangover can produce. Archie breaks his arm on the Astro-Turf of Hemmingway stadium. Johnny Vaught suffers a heart attack. And after but a short 4 month reprieve, our jumper finds himself back on the bridge in Tupelo. Only this time, he’s got to fight for space on the guardrail with his missionary and the other converts.

Ole Miss is destined to lose. We’re a fanbase living through a cruel curse of false idol, looking only for comfort inside a red cup. The sports gods will crush the bones and squeeze the hearts of our saviors to punish us for daring to consider success. Abandon hope and spare yourself the pain of the letdown.

Of course, this is all little more than Mormon archeology; backing up your preconceived beliefs with a shotgun marriage of past and present. Even so, I’ve been confusing the Mayans with the Israelites since the final whistle blew in Dallas in January. It’s a self-defense mechanism to temper against the off-season’s extrapolation of hype. It’s a shitty way to live, it’s a backwards-ass way to tell a story and the time for temperance is over.

A flipped coin lands on heads 100 times in a row. On the 101th flip, the chances of heads versus tails is exactly the same as on the first, because what happened before has absolutely no bearing on what happens now. And as Ole Miss football spins in the air for the 116th time, how it comes down has nothing to with what came before, despite the desperate need for context of those of us looking-on. The outcome of the 1970 Rebels has as much to do with our season this year as the 1987 Kent State Schockers or the 1956 Austrailian National Cricket Team.

Houston Nutt and Johnny Vaught have about as much in common as half-crazed weasels and the burlap sack they came in. Jevan Snead ain’t Archie Manning any more than the other current 100 players bear similarities to their positional counterparts. If only there was another part-time stationary designer defensive end with the power of flight (and the power to move you) that has somehow gone overlooked in Ole Miss lore. And what this contrived history leaves out is that before either the heart attack or the broken golden arm, Ole Miss lost to Southern Miss due to a twist of fate no more sinister than they simply didn’t play well that day, which leaves open the heretical possibility that even with Manning and Vaught at full capacity, the team might not have been all that good to begin with.

That’s certainly not to say that we can’t learn anything from the past. When the freshman from Carrolton, Texas with the Neilson’s tags still dangling from his Nantucket red dress pants pulls over his Tahoe to tell me to come off the bridge and grab a Nutt Rag because The South Will Rise Again, I’ll still step back from the edge. It won’t be to follow young Kingsley to the Right Reverand's Revival tent, but to find a taller launching point.

Because I know what Kingsley hasn’t figured out yet in his 11 months of Rebel religion—Butch Cassidy was wrong. It isn’t the fall that kills you. It’s the impact. The fall is actually the fun part, especially when you've waited this long to climb this high. Know that it’s coming, then instantly forget it and enjoy the ride as long as it goes with no expectations otherwise. Face to the sky, spread wide and eyes wide open, enjoying the view. So far, Memphis and Southeastern Louisiana have blown past like ugly couples having sex in an 82nd floor apartment. Not much to look at, but in the end, little more than benign mileage markers on what is sure to be a long, strange journey that will last as long as there’s still wind rushing by. Oh look, somebody lost a visor...

"Jump back down to the rooftops, look out over the town. Think about all those strange things circling round."