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Saturday, March 17
Iona's loss still shows progress off court
By Wright Thompson
Special to ESPN.com
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Even the name "Mississippi" is a dirty word to many fair-minded Americans. Images of fire hoses and burning crosses and National Guard troops immediately come to mind. There are still many loud reminders of what used to be.
One of the loudest? Section 111, row O, seat 10 in Kemper Arena Friday night in Kansas City.
|  | | Mississippi wouldn't play the 1957 Iona squad because of Stanley Hill's presence on the team. |
Stanley Hill, sitting beside Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat for the first half of the Ole Miss-Iona game, was a monument to the painful history of Mississippi.
As his alma mater, Iona, fell to the Rebels 72-70, Hill remembered another time Iona was to face Ole Miss. He was a member of that Iona team.
The game was in Kentucky, on Jan. 2, 1957. Rather than have the school tarnished or something by playing against Hill, a black man, the Rebels forfeited. Hill said he was humiliated. Forty-four years later, he now knows first hand what a difference time is making in the South and at Ole Miss.
"It's a great thing because, in 44 years, things have changed so positively," Hill said, minutes before tipoff.
Hill was watching the NCAA Tournament Selection Show when the Ole Miss-Iona pairing was announced. He immediately had a flashback to 1957. A New York newspaper contacted him and wrote a story.
In Oxford, Ole Miss officials read that story. Khayat decided that something should be done – a gesture. He invited Hill to attend the game as his guest.
"What the chancellor did is in line with what is happening in Mississippi today," James Meredith said on the phone Friday night from his home in Jackson, Miss. In 1962, Meredith became the first African-American to attend Ole Miss.
"In other words," Meredith continued, "they have corrected the wrongs of the past."
The gesture is, most important, a symbol of the changes that have taken place – even in the deepest of the Deep South. In the Ole Miss locker room after the game, several black student-athletes reflected about the importance of Hill's visit to Kansas City.
"I'm a history major, so I know a lot of things in history aren't right," Ole Miss senior Rahim Lockhart said. "But we're gonna move on forward. The University has done a great job of trying to repair the image of the school. They're never gonna be able to right all the wrongs that happened, but I think it's a great gesture."
All five starters and the head coach for Ole Miss are African-Americans – an amazing stat given the history of the school. This is the same school that practically went to war with the National Guard when Meredith was admitted.
Ole Miss freshman Justin Reed thought Friday night about that history and how he would feel being in Hill's shoes.
"I've thought about it," he said. "How would I react? I put myself in that situation all the time. I just thank God that things are better and athletes of any color are able to play anywhere they want to."
To the nation, Khayat's invitation was an olive branch. To the Ole Miss players, it made them realize just how far Mississippi has come.
"It helps me appreciate certain situations," Reed said. "Back years ago, black athletes weren't able to appreciate the things we have know. We're happy we're in a better situation than it was back then."
Wright Thompson is a columnist for the Columbia Missourian and a native Mississippian. He can be reached at wrightthompson@hotmail.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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