| Tuesday, July 2, 2024 |
| Summer Scholars Onstage presents 'Curses!' July 5-6 | |
 | Summer Scholars Onstage campers at Mississippi State are preparing to perform the original musical "Curses!" on July 5-6 on McComas Hall's main stage. The show, free and open to the public, is Friday [July 5] at 7 p.m. and Saturday [July 6] at 1 p.m. The three-act musical includes dancing, singing, acting and technical talents of 42 middle and high school students from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. Held prior to the current theatrical production camp, the writer's camp hosted 11 campers who studied scriptwriting and musical composition tracks. The musical spans centuries, detailing how a king's medieval curse leads to pandemonium from Illinois to outer space. "Curses!" is the 40th production for the long-running camp. The program, sponsored by MSU's Office of Pre-College Opportunity and Programs, received grants from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the 4-County Education Fund. |
| Starkville is Growing and Progressing | |
 | The city of Starkville knows that growing a municipality its size is rewarding in all sorts of ways. Starkville engineer, Cody Burnett says the process doesn't come without growing pains. "Always having limited staff...you feel like you always need more people. You feel like you always need more resources, so trying to work with the funding and the staff you have to accommodate a community you feel like is growing each and every day." Burnett and two other engineers make up the three-team engineering department. They make sure plans and initiatives turn into reality. Currently they are working on over a dozen projects. But there is one in particular Burnett is specifically excited about. "The Highway 182 Build Project, it's really a infrastructure project at its core. Our goal is to build all new infrastructure so that that new economic development and redevelopment we haven't seen, has the bones to build on. But then we will go back and we will clean up the streets, we will add new side walks, ADA complaint, bike lanes, street trees, all the beautiful things people think of that its core infrastructure project." |
| Legislature's mental health task force to begin meeting July 17-18 | |
 | Lawmakers in Mississippi are gearing up to tackle mental health through a new task force and are asking for the public's input. Established by Senate Bill 2727, the K-12 and Postsecondary Mental Health Task Force will begin meeting July 17-18 at the state capitol in Jackson. The 24-member committee is co-chaired by Rep. Rob Roberson and Sen. David Parker and includes mental health advocates and experts from across the state. The public is invited to provide any written testimony to MHTF@peer.ms.gov that could offer aid in drafting future legislation. "We need to establish a foundation on which the task force can build its recommendations," Parker said ahead of the first meeting. "I look forward to examining where Mississippi stands in terms of mental health of our young people in comparison to the rest of the nation." Other members of the K-12 and Postsecondary Mental Health Task Force include Mississippi State University's Karla Weir. |
| Federal judge halts Mississippi law requiring age verification for websites | |
 | A federal judge on Monday blocked a Mississippi law that would require users of websites and other digital services to verify their age. The preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden came the same day the law was set to take effect. A tech industry group sued Mississippi on June 7, arguing the law would unconstitutionally limit access to online speech for minors and adults. Legislators said the law is designed to protect children from sexually explicit material. "It is not lost on the Court the seriousness of the issue the legislature was attempting to address, nor does the Court doubt the good intentions behind the enactment of (the law)," Ozderen wrote. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that any law that dealing with speech "is subject to strict scrutiny regardless of the government's benign motive,'" Ozerden wrote. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation after it passed the GOP-controlled House and Senate without opposition from either party. The suit challenging the law was filed by NetChoice, whose members include Google, which owns YouTube; Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat; and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. |
| Former Speaker Philip Gunn appointed to Hinds County economic development board | |
 | While Philip Gunn might not be representing Hinds County and Clinton as the Speaker of the Mississippi House anymore, he will continue to play a role in the region's economic development. Monday during the Hinds County Board of Supervisors meeting in Downtown Jackson, supervisors voted unanimously to appoint Gunn to the Hinds County Economic Development Authority District 3 seat. The board also voted to approve a renovation project and renaming of the old Military Building at 664 S. State St. The building will now be called Hinds County Administrative Offices. Both Board President Robert Graham and District 3 Supervisor Deborah Butler-Dixon told the Clarion Ledger that Gunn seemed like the right person for the job. "He brings value," Graham said. "He brings knowledge, experience, wisdom and his many years in the legislature. We're hoping that he can open doors that other people can't, and we need every bit of help from every direction in Hinds County." Butler-Dixon, who chose Gunn to replace current board member Jared Turner, whose term was slated to expire in 2025, said she had already established a working relationship between herself and Gunn when they were previously serving in the Mississippi House. |
| Expect to see a larger law enforcement presence throughout Jackson | |
| As of July 1, the Capitol Complex Improvement District now covers much more of the city of Jackson. Capitol police and the Jackson Police Department are working together as policing in the Capitol City is undergoing a measurable change. The new Capitol police patrol expansion gives state officers primary patrol responsibilities over a greater portion of the city. It was approved by state lawmakers to address a growing crime problem. JPD and Capitol police officials maintain there are no disagreements or disputes as they work together on the jurisdictional evolution. "We are always going to keep a footprint," said JPD Asst. Chief Wendell Watts. JPD's dispatch center will handle 911 calls as they come in, and then call for Capitol police to have them respond. Both agencies are working on a Memorandum of Understanding to put some Capitol police staff in the city's call center and in the Real Time camera operation. "We are always excited about working with more law enforcement because anytime you see blue lights, you are not going to quite commit the crime," Watts said. Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said they are still adding to the Capitol police force to address the larger patrol area. Presently, there are about 150 officers. They hope to get that number north of 180. JPD has 264 officers now. |
| Powell Says Fed Has 'Made a Lot of Progress' on Inflation | |
 | Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said inflation had resumed a downtrend after a rebound at the start of the year, but he stopped short of saying that was sufficient to justify a move toward reducing interest rates. "We've made a lot of progress" on inflation, Powell said Tuesday on a panel with other central bankers at a conference in Portugal. He added, "We want to be more confident that inflation is moving sustainably down...before we start the process of loosening policy." The central bank is trying to determine whether and when to lower interest rates, currently at a two-decade high. Officials are balancing the risk that an ongoing cooling in the labor market accelerates in a way that is hard to stop once it starts against the risk that inflation settles out above their goal. Inflation fell to 2.6% in May, according to the Fed's preferred gauge, down from 4% one year earlier but still above its 2% target. It is expected to fall further as the lagged effect of earlier housing-cost increases diminish. Fed officials say they can take their time to cut interest rates so long as the labor market stays healthy. While payroll growth has been solid this year, there are signs consumer spending is finally slowing in line with what officials have long anticipated. |
| U.S. job openings went up in May despite high interest rates | AP News | |
| U.S. job openings rose slightly to 8.1 million in May despite the impact of higher interest rates intended to cool the labor market. Vacancies rose from a revised 7.9 million in April, the first reading below 8 million since February 2021, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. Layoffs rose slightly, and the number of Americans quitting their jobs -- a sign of confidence in their prospects -- was basically unchanged. The U.S. economy and job market have been remarkably resilient in the face of the Federal Reserve's campaign to raise interest rates to rein in inflation. The Fed hiked its benchmark rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023, lifting it to a 23-year high. Defying expectations of a recession, the U.S. economy kept growing and employers kept hiring. But lately there have been signs the economy is losing some steam. Job openings have come steadily down since peaking at 12.2 million in March 2022. The job market is still strong. There are 1.25 jobs for every unemployed American, but that's down from a 2-to-1 ratio in January 2023. Fed policymakers welcome lower job openings --- a relatively painless way to cool a hot job market and reduce pressure on companies to raise wages, which can feed inflation. The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that employers added 190,000 jobs last month, down from 272,000 in May, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. Unemployment is forecast to stay low at 4%. |
| 'We've all enabled the situation': Dems turn on Biden's inner sanctum post debate | |
 | Over the course of his presidency, Joe Biden's small clutch of advisers have built an increasingly protective circle around him, limiting his exposure to the media and outside advice -- an effort to manage public perceptions of the oldest person to ever hold the office and tightly control his political operation. But inside the White House, Biden's growing limitations were becoming apparent long before his meltdown in last week's debate, with the senior team's management of the president growing more strictly controlled as his term has gone on. During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings they'll deliver to Biden, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information being presented in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction. The debate, however, was so dismal for Biden that nobody could ignore it. For as furiously as Biden's advisers have pushed back on concerns about his age, the now 81-year-old president's halting, soft-spoken and scattered responses to former President Donald Trump, 78, shattered the party's magical thinking on the subject. That the president's difficulties came as such a shock was largely the result of how effectively his top aides and the White House on the whole has, for three and a half years, kept him in a cocoon -- far away from cameras, questions and more intense public scrutiny. |
| How much did debate hurt Biden's re-election bid? New poll offers insight. | |
 | Republican Donald Trump has edged ahead of Democrat Joe Biden, 41% to 38%, in the aftermath of the candidates' rancorous debate last week, according to an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll. That narrow advantage has opened since the previous survey in May showed the two contenders tied, 37% to 37%. The findings still signal a close contest, not a decisive lead. The difference in support and the shifts since the spring are within the polls' margins of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The new survey of 1,000 registered voters was taken Friday through Sunday by landline and cell phone. There was little change in the standing of third-party candidates, with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at 8% and three others at about 1% each. But other findings in the poll raised red flags for President Biden, whose campaign has been roiled by his faltering performance in the CNN debate last Thursday. In the survey, 41% of Democrats said they wanted Biden replaced at the top of the ticket. "It is still a margin of error race right now, but the Biden campaign must be concerned about the defection of second-choice votes of third-party voters," David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, said. Some Democratic strategists had calculated those voters would drift back to Biden as Election Day neared. |
| Historians, legal experts express dismay at Trump immunity ruling | |
 | Historians and legal experts warned Monday that the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling opens the door to dangerous abuses of power and strikes against foundational American principles of accountability under the law. Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice and author of several books about the country's legal landscape, said there are reasons to be nervous when it comes to the prosecution of a former president and some standards would make sense. "Here, though, the Court has issued an instruction manual for lawbreaking presidents," Waldman said on social media. "Make sure you conspire only with other government employees. You'll never be held to account." Presidential historian and author Michael Beschloss was among those who referred to the idea that the decision cut against the intent of the nation's founders. "Thanks to Supreme Court today, Presidents in future will have access to far more unaccountable power than they ever have had in American history," Beschloss posted on social media. "Founders wanted a President, not a King." Historian and author Garrett Graff, who wrote a book on Watergate, brought up the infamous quote from President Richard Nixon -- that if a president does it, that means it's not illegal -- and said nobody had believed it was true. "All of American history argues the opposite. And yet that's exactly what the Supreme Court agreed today," Graff wrote. "The entire test of Watergate was no one is above the law. Today, the Supreme Court made one man above the law." |
| USM students ask Hattiesburg leaders to pass resolution in support of Palestine | |
 | Several USM students asked the Hattiesburg City Council to consider a resolution surrounding the war in Gaza. In a presentation, members of "USM For Palestine" presented a resolution asking them to speak out about an immediate ceasefire. They said they'd also like to see more U.S. cities push for the release of hostages being held during the ongoing violence. "We want to join the over 100 cities in the nation that have proposed a ceasefire now, and we hope that Hattiesburg can stand on the right side of the history and join the city and hopefully the country in being able to state a ceasefire now," member Meg Anderson said. No action was taken after Monday's presentation during the agenda review. |
| Northeast alumni named new campus police chief | |
 | Northeast Mississippi Community College graduate Jason Jackson has been named the school's new Campus Police Chief, following the sudden passing of the former chief in March. Jackson, 40, has more than a decade of law enforcement experience and has served as a police officer at the college since 2022. He officially assumed the new role Monday, becoming the school's sixth chief of campus police. "With Chief Jackson's background in campus safety and commitment to our community, we are confident in his ability to prioritize and uphold the safety of everyone at Northeast Mississippi Community College," said school president Dr. Ricky G. Ford. "His experience and dedication make him an excellent choice for the role of Chief of Police, ensuring a secure environment for all members of our campus." A 2004 graduate of Northeast Mississippi Community College, Jackson holds an associate of arts in criminal justice and a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Mississippi. |
| Search: How millions will be spent at Louisiana colleges and universities | |
| Louisiana's colleges and universities are taking home millions for construction and other budget needs. It's perhaps the last such funding boost before the loss of state tax revenue could slash a quarter of a billion dollars from their operations in the 2026-27 academic year. The state budget for fiscal year 2024-25, which started Monday, includes approximately $589 million in immediate construction for higher education and around $93 million for research, campus security and other special projects. Unless state lawmakers make sweeping constitutional changes, higher education and public health care are likely to face drastic cuts once a 0.45% portion of the state sales tax expires June 30, 2025. The state construction budget, detailed in House Bill 2, provides allocations for each state university system, including an investment in the planning process for a new LSU library at its main campus. Overall, it includes less immediate money for campuses than the previous year, and it lays out promised funds for upcoming years. Projects in the LSU System are slated to receive about $186 million this year. In addition to planning a new library -- more money will be delivered when construction is underway -- around $65 million has been allocated for a new science building, and another $51 million was set aside for renovations at the medical education building laboratory at LSU Health Sciences Shreveport. |
| 'Always go out on top': Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp will retire June 2025 | |
| John Sharp, Texas A&M's longest serving chancellor who has transformed the university system and boosted the flagship's academic and athletic brands over his 13 years at the helm, will retire in June 2025. Citing a desire to "always go out on top," Sharp, 73, said in an interview with The Texas Tribune that he had accomplished most of what he had set out to achieve, from acquiring a law school to building a 2,000-acre high-tech campus called RELLIS for defense research and testing. "We've done some amazing things, and over the next year there's going to be some more amazing things, and I'm not sure after this next year it can be topped," Sharp said with a chuckle. "It seemed to be a pretty good time to say hey, it's been a great ride, and it's time for someone else to take the reins." Sharp informed the Board of Regents several weeks ago and announced his retirement to staff on Monday morning. The regents will conduct a national search in the coming months for Sharp's successor. Sharp's impending exit from his alma mater sets off a seismic change across Texas' higher education and political landscape where he is one of the most well-known and influential leaders. The charismatic and ambitious Aggie has presided over an enormous expansion of the A&M system, which now includes 11 universities, eight state agencies and more than 150,000 students. |
| What's the best college degree in the AI era? It's up for debate. | |
| Josephine Perl knows from experience that most college students pursuing humanities degrees inevitably get asked a version of the same question: What will you do to make a living? It's an inquiry the 20-year-old philosophy major at Boston University said especially troubles students like her since the launch of ChatGPT. Some predict the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot will decrease the worth of the refined language skills of workers with humanities degrees, credentials that have been declining for the past decade. As AI has begun to reshape the job market, the types of jobs that could be most impacted by its rise to prominence are slowly becoming more apparent. Though research into the topic is nascent, there are indications that the career prospects for workers in communications and computer coding could be relatively more endangered than other professions. For now, conclusions about which fields will be hardest hit by bots remain speculative. "I suspect we're going to be going through some sort of sea change," said Manav Raj, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied ChatGPT's effects on the workforce. "It's hard for me to tell you exactly what those skills are that will maintain value." The uncertainty is looming large over college-goers while challenging popular assumptions about the value of some degrees. The federal government at the same time is gearing up to slap fresh regulations on colleges to ensure students get their money's worth. |
| New Carnegie Classification Focuses on Leadership | |
 | The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education has unrolled the new Carnegie Elective Classification for Leadership for Public Purpose. It's designed to recognize institutions with leadership initiatives that benefit the collective public good, including justice, equity, diversity and liberty. "Our traditional degrees don't necessarily develop leadership skills on their own -- it requires intentionality on behalf of the institution. In this moment, we need leaders who speak beyond the sound bites and can understand the impact different policies are having in the world," said Marisol Morales, executive director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications at the American Council on Education. "Institutions that go for [the classification] are trying to take deliberate steps to foster leadership across campus that is broader than parties or political positions and is really about what aligns with the well-being of our society and our democratic values," Morales said. While Carnegie's basic classification categorizes universities based on research activity and degree types awarded, the organization also oversees two elective classifications: the community engagement classification, which launched in 2006, and the new leadership for public purpose classification, which launched last month. |
| Med schools face a new obstacle in the push to train more Black doctors | |
 | Jerrian Reedy was 9 when his father was admitted to the hospital in Hattiesburg, about two hours northeast of New Orleans, after sustaining three gunshot wounds. Reedy recalled visiting his dad in the intensive care unit that summer in 2009, even though children weren't typically permitted in that part of the hospital. "Just seeing him laid up in bed, in a hospital bed, it was traumatizing, to say the least," Reedy said. His father died within a week of being admitted, in the middle of a nine-month span when Reedy also lost an aunt and a grandmother. "They say death comes in threes," he said. That chain of events prompted him to pursue a career in medicine, one that might help him spare other children from losing loved ones too soon. Fifteen years later, Reedy has completed his first year at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine --- a remarkable feat, and not only because his career path was born of grief and trauma. Reedy is among a small share of Black medical school students in a state where nearly four in 10 people --- but only one in 10 doctors --- identify as Black or African American. Of the 660 medical school students enrolled in the same four-year program as Reedy, 82 students, or about 12%, are Black. Medical schools around the country are trying to recruit Black, Hispanic, and Native American students, all of whom remain disproportionately underrepresented in the field of medicine. But a recent swell of Republican opposition threatens to upend those efforts, school administrators say, and could exacerbate deep health disparities already experienced by people of color. |
| Court Revives Key Part of Biden's Student-Loan Program: What the Latest Ruling Means for Borrowers | |
| A part of President Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan that allows for lower debt payments for millions of Americans can go into effect after an appeals court ruling. The Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan is aimed at making debt repayment more affordable for low- and middle-income borrowers. Federal judges in Kansas and Missouri on June 24 had stalled parts of its implementation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in a June 30 decision, allowed for the SAVE plan's lower payments on undergraduate student loans for about three million people to proceed, granting an emergency stay of the Kansas court's injunction. The injunction by the Missouri court, which paused debt-cancellation efforts, wasn't affected. The Biden administration has also appealed the Missouri ruling. The SAVE plan has already begun lowering monthly payments for millions of borrowers. Parts of the plan aren't affected by the lawsuits, like its relief for those whose debt balances are rising due to unpaid interest. The latest court injunctions could put the plan at risk of the same fate as Biden's first student-loan forgiveness proposal, which the Supreme Court struck down last June. Roughly eight million borrowers are enrolled in the SAVE plan, according to the White House. |
| Supreme Court Decision Weakens Education Department | |
| Over the last 16 years, presidential administrations of both parties have wielded the power of the Education Department not to just carry out congressional legislative directives but also to make their own policies -- reshaping the federal government's role in higher education. They've retooled the rules for accreditors, added new accountability measures for for-profit programs, overhauled the student loan system and changed how colleges respond to reports of sexual misconduct. Not all of the policy changes survived legal challenges, but the legacy of legislating via regulation has endured. As Congress struggled to pass meaningful legislation related to higher education thanks to partisan gridlock, presidents increasingly opted to use the rule-making process to leave their mark on America's colleges and universities. But future administrations likely won't be rewriting regulations in the same way after the Supreme Court on Friday ended a 40-year precedent under which federal courts deferred to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote in the majority opinion that the deference to agencies known as the Chevron doctrine "cannot be reconciled" with the federal law dictating how the executive branch writes policies. Instead, federal judges should be empowered to determine whether a regulation complies with federal law. |
| Jackson State University As The First HBCU With Research 1 Classification | |
| Joseph Stevenson, former provost at Jackson State University and at Mississippi Valley State University, writes for the Mississippi Free Press: I envision a transformational concept of a five-year strategic plan to elevate Jackson State University, one of Mississippi's Historically Black Colleges and Universities, from its current Research 2 (R2) status to a future Research 1 (R1) stature. R2 institutions, while not as intensely research-driven as their R1 counterparts, still contribute substantially to the world of academia. While they award at least 20 research and scholarship doctoral degrees, unlike R1's 30 doctoral degrees, their emphasis is more evenly distributed between teaching and research. ... JSU would be the first HBCU in America to attain R1 classification. ... JSU must meticulously focus all research ambitions based on the manifestations of measurable and achievable student learning outcomes with pursued research capacity, comparability and capability. This is especially critical as well as crucial to this former JSU provost concerning student centeredness of the references of the "North Star" by the president at JSU and the president of HBCU Morgan State University. ... Given JSU's new commitment to serving students with the "North Star" metaphor, JSU would benefit from bridging measurable student learning outcomes in undergraduate and graduate level research with the new R1 stature from R2 status. This bridging could not only ignite, incubate, and innovate new doctorate programs under R1 standards with the Carnegie classification system, but could also generate North Star student aspirants and their interests to JSU from other Jackson area colleges and universities. |
SPORTS
| Mississippi State baseball to play at Minute Maid Park in 2025 | |
 | Mississippi State will play three games in a Major League Baseball stadium next season as part of the 2025 Astros Foundation College Classic at Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros. The Bulldogs will tentatively take on Rice on Feb. 28, Arizona on Mar. 1 and Oklahoma State on Mar. 2. MSU's last visit to an MLB venue came in 2021, when the Bulldogs opened the season with wins over Texas and Texas Tech and a loss to TCU at Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers. The Bulldogs went on to win their first national championship that year. MSU is coming off a 40-win season and its first trip to the NCAA Tournament since that 2021 national title. However, the Bulldogs are likely to lose their entire opening weekend rotation -- Nate Dohm, Khal Stephen and Jurrangelo Cijntje -- to the MLB Draft, and sluggers Dakota Jordan and Hunter Hines are also likely to enter the professional ranks. So far, head coach Chris Lemonis has added four players in the transfer portal, all infielders. Tennessee and Texas A&M, who met in the national championship series this season, will also represent the Southeastern Conference in Houston. |
| 'I just can't let y'all go': KeShawn Murphy breaks down return to Mississippi State | |
| After a tumultuous 2023-24 season that saw him miss eight games during Southeastern Conference play due to a personal matter, KeShawn Murphy tried his luck in the transfer portal this spring. But ultimately, Murphy decided his best option would be to stay put at Mississippi State. "My decision to go into the portal was (about) me trying to find a better fit for me," Murphy told reporters Friday. "It was an individual thing I had to battle, and my decision to come back was a home thing. I missed the fans. I just can't let y'all go. This is my home, this is where I belong, and I don't want to let that go." Murphy provided much-needed outside shooting out of the frontcourt and helped generate second chances with his work on the offensive boards. His defense is still a work in progress, but with a defensive-minded head coach like Chris Jans, improving his game on that end of the floor is a point of emphasis this offseason. "I'm working everywhere," Murphy said. "Right now, we have positionless basketball. Sometimes I'll be pushed in, sometimes I'll run the floor. Sometimes I'm setting ball screens, sometimes I'm spotting up. I'm just wherever I need to be to help the team." |
| Mississippi State's Tolu Smith, D.J. Jeffries land NBA contracts | |
| Mississippi State has not had a player selected in the NBA Draft since Robert Woodard II and Reggie Perry in 2020, but two Bulldogs who went undrafted this year will get their shots to play at the highest level. Center Tolu Smith, after a highly decorated career at MSU that saw him earn two First-Team All-Southeastern Conference honors, signed as an undrafted free agent with the Detroit Pistons. After spending his freshman year at Western Kentucky, Smith played in 108 games, starting 103, over the last four years with the Bulldogs. His breakout came in 2022-23, when he averaged 15.7 points and 8.5 rebounds per game with 12 double-doubles. Forward D.J. Jeffries signed as an undrafted free agent with the Memphis Grizzlies, who play just over a half-hour's drive from his hometown of Olive Branch, Mississippi. Jeffries will join the Grizzlies in Utah and Las Vegas for the NBA Summer League season. Following two years at Memphis, Jeffries spent the last three seasons with MSU, starting 91 of the 100 games he played in. |
| MSU Adds Gotkowski To Coaching Staff | |
| After announcing the promotion of Jake Jacoby to associate head coach, Mississippi State head men's tennis coach Matt Roberts rounded out his staff with the hire of Trevor Gotkowski. Gotkowski joins the Bulldogs as an assistant coach and comes to Starkville after spending two seasons at The Citadel, where he served as associate coach. "We're thrilled to add Trevor to our staff," Roberts said. "When we had the opportunity to add a third coach, we chose to take our time and find the right candidate and Trevor checked all the boxes we had. He brings a ton of energy and expertise. We look forward to him working with our guys when they get back in the fall and continuing to build our program for the future." During his time at The Citadel, he helped lead the Bulldogs to 18 victories - eight of which were shutouts - and competed in the inaugural NIT Championships in 2023. He assisted in the development of Sebastian Kamieniecki and Hayden Shoemake into All-Southern Conference performers in each of his seasons in Spartanburg. Prior to becoming a college coach, Gotkowski worked as a tennis professional and golf shop manager at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina and spent two years as the head tennis professional at Florence Country Club. He also co-founded and served as the primary instructor for Future Tennis, LLC and is a member of the Third Serve Foundation, which helps underprivileged children participate in tennis. Gotkowski, a native of Cartersville, Georgia, was a four-year letterwinner at Wofford College from 2013-17 where he earned 45 career victories. He received his bachelor's degree in economics while also minoring in business. |
| Maloney, Hairston appointed to Mississippi Wildlife Commission | |
| Gov. Tate Reeves has submitted his options to fill two open seats on the Mississippi Commission on Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. In an internal email obtained by SuperTalk Mississippi News, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks announced that Colin Maloney and Todd Hairston were appointed by the Republican governor to join the five-member commission. The appointment will be subject to confirmation by the Mississippi Senate, which reconvenes in January. Both are avid outdoorsmen who have board experience. Maloney served on the Mississippi Outdoor Stewardship Trust Fund Board of Trustees, and Hairston was a member of the Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Foundation Board. Hairston was selected to replace Leonard Bentz, Jr., who was not reconfirmed by the Senate amid an illegal hunting scandal, while Maloney was selected to replace former chairman Bill Cossar. Cossar decided earlier this year to step away from the commission, effective June 30, with Scott Coopwood taking his place as chair. Other returning Wildlife Commission members are Gary Rhoades and William Mounger. |
| Why Oklahoma, Texas will further establish SEC as college baseball's dominant league | |
| As of July 1, SEC baseball is becoming even bigger. Oklahoma and Texas joined the conference, and while the fanfare was biggest in football, the expansion has significant impacts in baseball as well. Both the Sooners and Longhorns have a rich baseball history. Texas has the most College World Series appearances of any team, with 38, and its six national titles are third behind USC and LSU. Oklahoma has 11 College World Series appearances, tied for fifth in the SEC, and two titles. Both teams now join a conference that has produced the past five national champions and six of the past seven. The SEC already has made scheduling changes, dropping divisions in favor of two permanent opponents for each team. Beginning in 2025, the SEC tournament will include all 16 teams in a single-elimination format, rather than 12 teams in a modified double-elimination as was the case previously. Parity within the league is high. The past six SEC national champions have been different schools. Ten of the 16 have won at least one national title, and all 16 have made at least one trip to Omaha. With the Sooners and Longhorns each making recent Omaha runs, the race for postseason position will become even tougher. The SEC already has some great baseball rivalries, including Mississippi State/Ole Miss and Vanderbilt/Tennessee. Oklahoma and Texas will join as rivals in their own right, but the recent Jim Schlossnagle saga should up the ante even more. The Longhorns plucked Schlossnagle from College Station just one day after Texas A&M competed in the College World Series finals, and there's plenty of bad blood on both sides. |
| Inside the logistical challenges of moving conferences | |
| Long before Monday's celebration in Norman marking the dawn of Oklahoma's new era in the SEC, Greg Tipton, the school's executive associate athletic director for internal operations, facilities and events, had an epiphany. It was last July, and Oklahoma was already well into its process to chronicle all of the Big 12 logos around campus to be replaced with new SEC marks. "I need to go count those flagpoles," he thought, about the flags that fly over the south end zone videoboard at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and represent each conference member. "You have your American flag, your state flag, your OU flag high up in the center, but then there were 10 flagpoles. I'm like wait, there's this ... We've got to fix this." As the college sports landscape continues to change, fans will focus on the intricacies of the schedule or new road trips. But there are also plenty of conversations about smaller logistical hurdles going on inside athletic departments when they're told they're taking their ball and going to a new conference. Yes, staff members are changing budgets and managing resources, but there's also so much more. They're documenting logos. They're sanding basketball courts, mocking different routes to new cities, buying new stencils for athletic fields and ditching old quarter-zips and polos with unsightly old emblems. And they're counting flagpoles. Welcome to the glamorous world of realignment. |
| How a Supreme Court case changed college football forever, from TV deals to realignment | |
 | Andy Coats loves telling his classes about it. It's one thing to teach antitrust law. It's quite another to tell his Oklahoma students there once was a case, one that went all the way to the Supreme Court, that involved the school they attend -- and it was about football. Then Coats, almost 90 years old and still sounding as sharp as he was half his life ago, looks at his students and makes the big reveal. "I'm the guy who screwed up college football," he says. Oklahoma, where the law school building is named after Coats, officially joined the SEC with Texas on Monday. When announced three years ago, SEC expansion set off a wave of realignment that changed the complexion of college athletics. It was about the chase for television money. And it happened because nobody is in charge: The NCAA is powerless to tell conferences what to do. The conferences and schools are free to chase all the TV dollars, and in turn the courts and lawyers are free to demand the players get their fair share, their name, image and likeness money, their unlimited transferring. It all stems from one lawsuit, 40 years ago, when Oklahoma -- joined by Georgia, long before they became conference mates -- teamed up against the NCAA to challenge its stranglehold on television rights. When it ended, the NCAA lost control of football, and the financial floodgates opened. It was the case that changed everything. |
| Devout athletes find strength in their faith. But practicing it and elite sports can pose hurdles | |
| It's been 100 years since a Scottish runner famously refused to race on a Sunday at the Paris Olympics because of his Christian beliefs. Devout top athletes say elite sports performance still poses some hurdles for the faith practices that are central to their lives on and off the field. At this summer's Paris Olympics, much of the controversy has centered around Islam, because France's unique secularism principles forbid its athletes from wearing headscarves as well as other visibly religious symbols -- though the ban doesn't affect Olympians from other countries. But athletes of different faiths argue sports organizations and major events should better respect the breadth of religious practices, especially as they strive to be more inclusive. To many, faith and spirituality are also essential to mental well-being, which has come under the spotlight especially since U.S. gymnastics star Simone Biles ' open struggles at the last Olympics. Athletes with a secure attachment to God tend to be less depressed, anxious and lonely than those with a negative perception of a punishing God or those who are not religious, said Laura Upenieks, a Baylor University sociology professor who has studied elite athletes at U.S. colleges. That's in large part because they don't base their self-worth on others' approval, are less self-centered and can find greater meaning beyond being "only as good as the last race," Upenieks added. |
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