October 13, 1979. An 11-year old Boy Scout from Troop 7 in Mount Olive went with the rest of his fellow Scouts to Hattiesburg to be an usher for the USM-Tulane game. Earlier in the day, the Baltimore Orioles took a 3-1 lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series (yes, they used to play day baseball in the Fall Classic.) The Pirates came back to win in seven games. My dad, a diehard fan of the O’s, was not happy. In 1979, the Pine Burr Area Council of Boy Scouts provided ushers for USM football games.
That 11-year old Boy Scout, of course, was me. The remodeled Rock (as it most assuredly was NOT known as then) was only in its fourth season. The crowd, listed in the 2007 media guide as 30,028, was the largest announced attendance for an opponent not named Ole Miss or Mississippi State to date in Hattiesburg. As I recall from working in section LL (then, as until 1987, the student section was on the west side), that number was probably a little overstated.
Dane McDaniel was the starting quarterback for the Eagles. A little-known freshman who wore #10 was on the bench, waiting on his opportunity, which came weeks later against Arkansas State following a disappointing loss at Bowling Green (a game which was televised back to the area by WDAM- I watched on my maternal grandmother’s black and white set at her home outside of Collins- funny how details like that stick in the mind.)
Bobby Collins was in the middle of his fifth of seven seasons in charge of the Golden Eagles. His team was coming off a 30-10 win over North Texas State, as they were then known, a game which was televised on a delayed basis by a fledgling television network nobody had ever heard of around Hattiesburg- ESPN. Earlier in the season, the Eagles had lost at Auburn before 45,226, an unimagniable attendance number some 29 years later. Whitey Jordan coordated the conservative veer option offense, while Jim “Big Nasty” Carmody led a defense which would knock your ass into the dirt, no matter who you were.
I remember few details from the game itself beyond asking lots of people if they needed help to their seats. I remember it being the second largest crowd of people I’d ever seen at one time (the first being a Saints game in 1976.) I remember the Tulane quarterback’s name, Roch Hontas. It was the first ever meeting between Tulane and USM, the Greenies having looked down their nose at the Eagle program for many years before agreeing to a series.
The 1980 game was televised on ABC on a Saturday afternoon and won by the Eagles 17-14 on a Reggie Collier-to-Marvin Harvey touchdown before 45,000 in the Superdome. That game being televised was a Big Deal for Southern Miss, because only ABC covered any live NCAA football before 1982.
The Scoutmaster decided we needed to leave to beat traffic before the game ended. Tulane won 20-19 when Southern Miss kicker Winston Walker “missed” a field goal in the waning seconds of the game. To this day, Southern Miss folks dispute that the kick was missed. Bill Goodrich sure thought it was good as we listened on the radio, heading back up Highway 49 in the late fall Mississippi evening.
The 1979 USM-Tulane game was a game played in a bygone era of football- before the internet, before cable saturation, before the complete specialization of the game. Bear Bryant won the last of his national titles in that year. Woody Hayes had just been forced to resign. Lee Corso was still (unsuccessfully) coaching at Indiana. You could see (maybe) two live games per week on ABC. I remember it like it was yesterday- an impressionable boy watching his future alma mater play football for the first time. Now, in my 30th season of watching Southern Miss football, I look back and think there- right there- was where it all started for me.
