A Front-Row Seat with the Sportswriters Who Sat There
Sit down with host Todd Jones and other sportswriters who knew the greatest athletes and coaches, and experienced first-hand some of the biggest sports moments in the past 50 years. They’ll share stories behind the stories -- some they’ve only told to each other.
Rick Cleveland: “They Didn’t Seem to Have as Much Fun as Sportswriters.”
We head down South on this episode with Rick Cleveland, who has been named Mississippi Sportswriter of the Year a record 14 times. He discusses how sports helped to finally end segregation in his home state during his career of nearly 60 years. Rick shares anecdotes about Walter Payton, Brett Favre, and Archie Manning – father of Peyton and Eli – before and after they left Mississippi and became NFL stars. He recalls witnessing Tiger Woods winning the Masters for the first time. He tells us about point guard Ruthie Bolton, one of 20 children in her family, winning an Olympic gold medal. And Rick shares memories of the bitter and historic Egg Bowl rivalry between Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
Cleveland, a native of Hattiesburg and resident of Jackson, has received more journalism awards than any sportswriter in Mississippi history. In January, he received his record 14th honor as the state’s best sportswriter from the National Sports Media Association. Rick was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 and into the Hattiesburg Hall of Fame in 2018. He received the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence in 2011 and was inducted into the University of Southern Mississippi Communications Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2000, he was honored with the Distinguished Mississippian Award from Mississippi Press Association.
Rick has covered sports since 1966. His first story was published at age 13 for the Hattiesburg American, where he worked throughout high school and college. After earning bachelor’s degrees in journalism and history from the University of Southern Mississippi, he joined the Monroe (La.) News Star World for one year. Rick then returned to Mississippi at the Jackson Daily News before moving to that city’s Clarion-Ledger as a beat reporter covering Ole Miss and Mississippi State. He later became the paper’s sports editor and columnist. Since 2016, Cleveland has been writing a syndicated sports column for Mississippi Today after serving four years as executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Rick has covered 29 Super Bowls and has chronicled the NFL careers of Mississippi natives such as Payton, Favre, Manning, Jerry Rice, Steve McNair and Ray Guy. He has also covered several Masters tournaments, the 1996 Summer Olympics, the U.S. Open in golf, and Finals Four and College World Series appearances by Mississippi teams.
Three generations of Rick’s family have covered sports in Mississippi since 1946. His father, “Ace” Cleveland was a longtime sportswriter and editor at the Hattiesburg American before spending 33 years as sports information at Southern Miss. Ace worked 325 consecutive football games for the Golden Eagles, and he’s enshrined in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Rick’s brother, Bobby, spent 30 years as the outdoors writer for the Clarion-Ledger. Rick’s son, Tyler, has covered Mississippi sports for more than a decade.
Cleveland and his son, Tyler, host the podcast “Crooked Letter Sports,” which centers on Mississippi sports talk and stories. New episodes come out each Thursday. https://mississippitoday.org/crooked-letter-sports-podcast/
Rick has authored four books:
· “It’s More Than a Game” – a collection of Cleveland’s columns.
· “Vaught – The Man and his Legacy” about Ole Miss football coach Johnny Vaught.
· “Boo – A Life in Baseball, Well-Lived” about former Boston Red Sox player Boo Ferriss.
· “Mississippi’s Greatest Athletes”
Follow him on Twitter: @rick_cleveland
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PBA_Rick Cleveland Edited Transcript
Speakers: Todd Jones & Rick Cleveland
Todd Jones (00:01):
Rick, you've walked into this Press Box Access tavern, fully warned, thank you for coming, anyway.
Rick Cleveland (00:09):
I'm looking forward to it, Todd.
Todd Jones (00:12):
I'm just very happy-
Rick Cleveland (00:12):
I've enjoyed the episodes I've listened to. It's a great idea and a great concept.
Todd Jones (00:19):
Well, thank you. Thank you. My payment should be coming through to your Venmo at any moment. I'm very happy you've joined us. Any friend of Tom Archdeacon is welcomed here, so thank you.
Rick Cleveland (00:33):
Arch is the best, one of the dearest souls I've ever met.
Todd Jones (00:38):
Yeah. He was one of our very first few guests. And Arch kept saying to me, “You have to have Rick on.” So, here we go. We got Rick. And yeah, you walked in here with credentials that few sports writers can match, certainly down south. No question in the state of Mississippi.
Todd Jones (00:53):
Rick, unprecedented 14-time winner, Sportswriter of the Year in Mississippi, hell, I feel like I'm talking to William Faulkner.
Rick Cleveland (01:04):
Somebody said the other day when they announced this year that, "Boy, your daddy, who was a sports writer would really be proud of you." And I said, yeah, he'd be really proud. He'd say, "What happened those other 43 years."
Todd Jones (01:18):
That's right. Win something, then you got to keep repeating it.
Rick Cleveland (01:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Todd Jones (01:24):
Well, you've been writing about sports for 57 years. That's just amazing to me. When you think about it, when somebody says 57 years of covering sports, what do you think of?
Rick Cleveland (01:36):
Well, one thing I think of is that back when I started in Mississippi, it was segregated. There were white teams and black teams. There weren't mixed teams. And women didn't play much of anything.
Rick Cleveland (01:54):
There were no women's sports to speak of. Small towns had girls' basketball teams, but there was no college basketball or anything like that. And of course, television has changed everything, but-
Todd Jones (02:15):
What was it like as a young white guy to come into a segregated sports world like that in Mississippi?
Rick Cleveland (02:22):
I had grown up here, so it was just the way the way things were. I remember thinking to myself, “Why are they this way?” But that's the way things were.
Rick Cleveland (02:39):
I grew up in Hattiesburg and the high schools were segregated, but my daddy would take me on Friday nights over across town. Actually, it was on Thursday nights. The Rowan High was the black school and Hattiesburg, and we'd go, and they never lost, by the way, they never lost. They just won every game, and they usually won by 55 to nothing.
Rick Cleveland (03:05):
And I remember my daddy taking me, and they'd had a special little section roped off there, where the white people sat.
Todd Jones (03:13):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (03:13):
And I just remember thinking, "Golly, these people are having a lot more fun, than the other school I go look at, go watch their games."
Rick Cleveland (03:27):
And actually, we would go watch the black semi-pro team. It was the Hattiesburg Black Sox, and we'd go watch them play.
Rick Cleveland (03:36):
And then, when the schools desegregated in Mississippi, was around the late 60s, and one of the first guys that I covered was Walter Payton. I grew up in Hattiesburg. He was in Columbia, which was 26 miles away.
Todd Jones (03:57):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (03:59):
And he was on the first integrated team at Columbia High. It's amazing when you think about it, Todd, we're only half a century removed from that.
Todd Jones (04:10):
Yeah. I think sometimes we think about history in regards to, "Oh, that was a long time ago." But no, it wasn't. No, it wasn't at all.
Rick Cleveland (04:17):
No, it wasn't that long ago at all.
Todd Jones (04:21):
Right, right. Did being a sports writer open your eyes to the world? And do you think sports played a part in helping make it a better world? Especially in the south.
Rick Cleveland (04:33):
In Mississippi, there's no question about it. I can't imagine what desegregation would've been like in a lot of small towns in Mississippi if it hadn't been for sports.
Rick Cleveland (04:47):
Let's face it, Todd, they're down there on the field. You are watching it and you're seeing black kids and white kids play together and work together and be better for it.
Todd Jones (05:00):
Right.
Rick Cleveland (05:04):
You can't miss it. It's happening right in front of you. So yeah, it was quite something. And in the last year, Mississippi changed the state flag, got rid of the confederate battle flag, which is always there in the corner of the state flag.
Rick Cleveland (05:26):
And to be honest with you, it wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for sports. That was what put the flag issue over the hump, was black players coming out and saying they're not going to play if that flag's flying at the stadium. The SEC's saying, "We're not going to hold any of our championship things in Mississippi if you don't change that flag."
Rick Cleveland (06:03):
And then, right on about the week before, they were having the vote on it in the state legislature, every coach and athletic director at Mississippi Colleges came to the legislature and they had a press conference right there on the floor of the legislature saying, "We got to change this flag." And it happened.
Todd Jones (06:29):
Right. Like you said-
Rick Cleveland (06:31):
Only about a hundred years too late, but it happened.
Todd Jones (06:33):
Yeah. Right, right.
Rick Cleveland (06:35):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (08:11):
Well, I think about that because sometimes people think sports writers, sports in general, it's just a toy department. But it really is such a part of the culture of the society that we live in, that it's intertwined with history, especially in something like race relations.
Rick Cleveland (08:27):
Absolutely. And there might be other states where sports are more entwined in the culture of the state, but I'm not aware of them. In Mississippi, the games that we play and go to are an incredibly important part of our culture.
Todd Jones (08:47):
Well, let's talk about this. You're age 13 when you first start.
Rick Cleveland (08:51):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (08:51):
Now, this is a family affair for you, sports writing. You're still writing at Mississippi today as a sports columnist and sports editor, and you co-host Crooked Letter Sports Podcast with your son Tyler, who's also a sports writer.
Todd Jones (09:04):
And your father, as you mentioned, Ace Cleveland, was a longtime sports writer. And then, for 33 years, the final 33 of his career, he was a Sports Information Director at Southern Mississippi.
Rick Cleveland (09:16):
Right. So, I grew up, actually from the time I was three until the time I was seven, my mother and father were the proctors of the athletic dormitory.
Todd Jones (10:57):
You know all the secrets.
Rick Cleveland (10:58):
Yeah. My babysitters were the jocks. I learned a lot of words I wasn't supposed to know at age five. But yeah. And my backyard was the football stadium. The dormitory was actually underneath the stadium like it is at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge.
Todd Jones (11:17):
Yeah. So, you're running around in the press box as a kid.
Rick Cleveland (11:21):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (11:22):
Did you just take a liking for the writers and what was that like? Was it magical for you?
Rick Cleveland (11:28):
Yeah. And after the games, all the writers would come to our house and my dad would have a little party for them and they'd discuss their stories. And of course, I'd watched the same game, so I was real interested in that.
Rick Cleveland (11:49):
And what I found Todd, my doctor and the plumbers that came to the house, they didn't seem to be having nearly as much fun as those sports writers did.
Todd Jones (12:04):
Exactly, right.
Rick Cleveland (12:06):
Yeah. So, I guess I was like 12-years-old when I told my dad that's what I wanted to do. I've decided what I'm going to do is I'm going to be a sports writer.
Todd Jones (12:21):
And you did at age 13, think about this.
Rick Cleveland (12:25):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (12:25):
At age 13, tell us the story about your first assignment and how did it go? What was it?
Rick Cleveland (12:34):
Okay. Well first, when I was 12 and told dad this, he said, "You're going to have to learn to type, you got to type." And so, actually, I was 12-years-old and I was about three feet eight. And I take typing in a summer school course at the university. I audit the class and go in and take typing, so I'll know how to type.
Rick Cleveland (12:59):
But my first assignment was actually a game between Brooklyn High School, about 20 miles south of Hattiesburg and Lucedale High School, about 50 miles southeast of Hattiesburg. And it was at Lucedale.
Rick Cleveland (13:16):
And of course, I don't have a driver's license. I can't ride my bicycle, 50 miles. So, my dad drives me down there and I cover the game, come back to the house, sit down at his typewriter at our kitchen table.
Rick Cleveland (13:33):
And he leaves the room and about 30 minutes later he comes back in and that white sheet of paper is still clean and white. He said something I probably shouldn't say on-
Todd Jones (13:51):
No, go ahead. Go ahead.
Rick Cleveland (13:52):
He said, "Well shit, son, what the hell's going on?" And I said, "Dad, I can't get started, I don't know where to start." And he gave me right then, some of the best advice I've ever gotten as a writer. He said, "Well son, if I was you, I'd start writing it the way I'd tell it."
Rick Cleveland (14:12):
And I did and it damn sure wouldn't have won any awards, but I got a byline in the next day's Hattiesburg American and nobody got libeled. There were no four-letter words in it. I could spell, to be honest with you, Todd, at that point, at the Hattiesburg American, the qualifications you had to have to write sports were you had to be able to type and breathe. And I could do both.
Todd Jones (14:50):
Well, I got to say that's probably the qualifications of a lot of places, over the years.
Rick Cleveland (14:55):
Yeah. And people ask me, "What'd you make for those games?" And I think I was making; it was either 5 or 10 bucks a game.
Todd Jones (15:08):
Hey.
Rick Cleveland (15:09):
But hell, at 13, that was-
Todd Jones (15:13):
That's a lot of baseball cards you can buy and put in the-
Rick Cleveland (15:16):
Exactly, right.
Todd Jones (15:17):
Spokes of your bicycle wheels.
Rick Cleveland (15:18):
A lot of milkshakes at that time.
Todd Jones (15:21):
Yeah. Well, byline at age 13, you certainly learned how to do it, at the Hattiesburg American. You went on to the Jackson Daily News, and then long time at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson as sports editor and columnist. And we're going to talk a lot about your home state in Mississippi, as we already have.
Todd Jones (15:37):
But sports writing, as you said, it opened your eyes to the world around you, but it also took you a lot of places.
Rick Cleveland (15:43):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (15:43):
Took you out of the state. You went to 29 Super Bowls, I believe.
Rick Cleveland (15:47):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (15:47):
Olympics, Masters, US Open. When you think about some of the places you've been, one place that I wanted to ask you about was the Masters.Todd Jones (21:00):
I wanted to ask you about one particular year, and that's 1997 when Tiger Woods, the young Tiger Woods, won the Masters for the first time. And I bring this up because we talked a little bit about the racial history of the South and sports.
Todd Jones (21:15):
Tiger goes into Augusta, Georgia and just wins as a young guy, just destroys the field.
Rick Cleveland (21:22):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (21:23):
What was that like to cover that event, being a southern writer and knowing the history of not just the South, but Augusta.
Rick Cleveland (21:37):
Well, it was truly amazing. But I got to tell you, Todd — and I can't remember what year it was, but I was there the year Lee Elder was the first black man to play in the Masters. And that was what was really … to me, it's the guys like Lee Elder and Pete Brown, who's from Jackson, Mississippi, and was the first African American to win on the tour. Those were the guys that I was thinking about when Tiger won by 12 shots, I was thinking about those guys who did it first.
Rick Cleveland (22:22):
I got to know Pete Brown later on, and he had gotten his start caddying at a club that's a few miles from where I live. And when he started playing golf, he had a Five Iron and a 3 Wood, and one of them was a right-handed club, and one of them was a left-handed club.
Todd Jones (22:42):
Wow. That's how he learned the game.
Rick Cleveland (22:45):
Yeah. That's how he learned the game. And-
Todd Jones (22:48):
And then he went on to win on the PGA tour.
Rick Cleveland (22:50):
He beat, gosh, who was it he beat? He beat a really great player in a playoff to win the San Diego Open. I think 1967. My memory may be a little bit off, but it was in there.
Rick Cleveland (23:14):
And back then, I think first prize was like $5,000, which seems like peanuts now. But at that time, I remember talking to his wife when he went into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, posthumously, and his wife said, "You can't believe what that meant." And I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "I could pay the rent."
Todd Jones (23:41):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (23:43):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (23:43):
So, those are the people and the anecdotes that you thought of when Tiger comes in-
Rick Cleveland (23:48):
That's what I thought of when Tiger did what he did, and I thought about all the people — I grew up in Hattiesburg and I remember when the Magnolia Classic, which became what is now the Sanderson Farms Classic stand-alone event on the PGA tour. Mississippi's only PGA tour tournament.
Rick Cleveland (24:15):
But it was the Magnolia Classic back then, and it started in Hattiesburg. And I think Pete Brown was not only the first black guy to play in it, but was maybe the first black person that ever played the golf course.
Todd Jones (24:30):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (24:30):
He wouldn't have been allowed to be a member.
Todd Jones (24:34):
Right.
Rick Cleveland (24:35):
Yeah. When Tiger won, I remember thinking, it was just an amazing display of golf, first of all. But I thought of those people that came before him.
Rick Cleveland (24:52):
I think I'm a lot like you in this spec. The history of sports is what really grabs me. That's the part I really love. And a lot of times when I'm watching an event, I'll think about the history of what led to this. And with Tiger at that Masters, that's what I thought about.
Todd Jones (25:14):
Well, I think that's what made your writing stand out and still does, is that your ability to contextualize and put into a timeframe what this means, it goes beyond what we think we're seeing. And you're able to bring out the humanity of the past people who made this possible, or just some stories behind the scenes about people that you might not have realized.
Todd Jones (25:38):
When you went to the Olympics, I'm thinking about the '96 Olympics and the U.S. Women's basketball team, they won the gold medal. There's a lot of stories. But you as a Mississippi writer knew how to bring it home to your audience. And there was a player, Ruthie Bolton.
Rick Cleveland (25:57):
From McLain, Mississippi.
Todd Jones (25:58):
McLain, Mississippi. I think the population now was like 400.
Rick Cleveland (26:02):
Well, at that time, 21 of them were named Bolton because she was one of 19 siblings. She had 18 brothers and sisters. And her father was a Baptist minister and a farmer.
Rick Cleveland (26:21):
And I asked him, I heard his name was Linwood Bolton. I remember asking him at those Olympics. I said, "Well, Mr. Bolton, how are you a pastor and a farmer?" And he said, "Well, I had 19 children. I had to feed them." And he said, "That's why I farm, was to feed that family."
Rick Cleveland (26:46):
Ruthie, she was the most tenacious athlete I've ever covered.
Todd Jones (26:52):
Really?
Rick Cleveland (26:53):
She got every loose ball. She was the heart and soul of that Olympic team. She was the point guard. And I asked her where that drive and that passion and the hustle came from. And she told me, and she said, "If you're one of 19 kids in your family, you better hustle, or you're not going to get a piece of the fried chicken. You're not going to get the piece of chicken at dinner."
Todd Jones (27:21):
That's right. You're lucky if you get a slice of bread.
It's interesting that her story has stuck with you all these years.
Rick Cleveland (29:04):
Well again, I've covered 29 Super Bowls and I don't remember one where there wasn't a Mississippi guy that was a big part of, we've had so many.
Todd Jones (29:21):
Yeah. Let's talk about this. You mentioned Walter Payton. You think about so many great athletes that came out of Mississippi. Mississippi, it's not a huge population state.
Todd Jones (29:31):
But when you think about the athletes and coaches, especially NFL, Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Brett Favre, Archie Manning, Steve McNair, Lance Alworth, you can go on and on. Not just great players. Payton, Rice, Favre, Manning, McNair, those are some of the biggest names to ever play in the NFL.
Rick Cleveland (29:53):
Yeah. At one time you had Walter Payton was the leading rusher in NFL history. At one time, Brett Favre was the leading passer in NFL history. Jerry Rice, the leading pass receiver and touchdown scorer in NFL history. And Steve McNair was the total offense leader in the history of NCAA football at one time. All those guys are from towns in Mississippi, are fewer than 7,000 people.
Todd Jones (30:27):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (30:28):
There's all small-town Mississippi guys.
Todd Jones (30:32):
So, what is it about those small-town guys that when you think about their backgrounds and then where they go on to become at the pantheon of NFL players, what was it about their roots in Mississippi that you think drove them?
Rick Cleveland (30:48):
I've had this discussion with Archie Manning, who's from Drew Mississippi, and he's got to be the patriarch or the first family of football in the United … Archie Manning.
Rick Cleveland (31:03):
And I've talked to him about it. And he thinks it's because of just how important and what a huge part of the fabric of small-town Mississippi high school football is. The kids, you do two things. You go to football, high school football games on Friday night, and you go to church on Sunday morning. And that's the two big things in small town Mississippi. And well, there's deer hunting on Saturday.
Rick Cleveland (31:46):
And it's like Archie said, you grow up going to the games and it's the big thing in town. Everybody goes to the games and you grow up dreaming of being one of those guys out there playing.
Rick Cleveland (32:06):
Nolan Richardson, famously said, "Where do you think the slave ships landed?"
Rick Cleveland (32:13):
We also had Lance Alworth and Brett Favre and a lot of really great white football players came from Mississippi too. It is a huge part of the social fabric of Mississippi, is high school football. And I think that has a lot to do with it.
Todd Jones (32:31):
You mentioned Walter Payton in high school. Do you remember your first memory, seeing Walter, as a reporter?
Rick Cleveland (32:37):
Columbia was on the outskirts of our high school coverage. So, we had a stringer over there who called in the reports of all the little high schools in Marion County, which is about 30 miles.
Rick Cleveland (32:50):
And the woman's name was Eva B Beats. And every Friday night I would get the call from her. And she always asked for me, and she called me Ricky, and she always started like this. She said, "Ricky, you ain't going to believe what that Payton boy did tonight." And I'll never forget that.
Rick Cleveland (33:15):
And on the last game of his senior season, she started it out that way. And then she said, "Walter scored seven touchdowns, and on the last one he ran the last 35 yards backwards."
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Really? That's spectacular.
Rick Cleveland (33:36):
Yeah. And that's also why none of the three division 1, predominantly white, historically white universities didn't recruit him. It was at the cusp of integration in Mississippi. And they didn't want a black person that was going to run the last 35 yards backwards.
Todd Jones (34:08):
That was held against him. Right.
Rick Cleveland (34:36):
Yeah. He only scored 464 points at Jackson State. Think about that. The other thing about Walter, particularly now, because we're getting a few decades removed from when he played, but Walter not only was the great runner, he's one of the greatest blockers I ever saw. He didn't just block the edge rushers. He hurt them. He was something.
Rick Cleveland (35:10):
Now I remember his agent, his agent was a Hattiesburg attorney named Bud Holmes, and he called me at the Hattiesburg American one day and said, "Well, they're having Pro Day up at Jackson State, you want to ride up there with me?" And I said, "Sure, I'll ride up there with you."
Rick Cleveland (35:28):
And back then, this is 1972 or 3 and the football was integrated in Mississippi. State, Ole Miss, Southern Miss all had black players, but they only had three or four. And Jackson State on their senior day, there were 24 prospects.
Todd Jones (36:02):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (36:03):
24 pro prospects that had to run the 40. And two of the top six draft picks were from Jackson State, Walter and Robert Brazile, another NFL-
Todd Jones (36:17):
Great player for the Oilers. Right?
Rick Cleveland (36:18):
Yeah. So, there are 24 people lined up ready to run the 40-yard dash. And Walter goes first and he knocks off about 3,4,4,4,4.45, 40-yard dashes. And then he goes over and sits on his helmet and watches the other guys do it.
Rick Cleveland (36:42):
And then, they finish and they're about to move to the next thing. And Walter, you hear that high pitched voice of his said, "Hey, y'all watch this." And he gets down at the start of the 40-yard dash, gets in a handstand and handstands 40 yards. And I tell this story a lot and-
Todd Jones (37:08):
Wait a minute, explain this. I got to visually think about this.
Rick Cleveland (37:11):
He gets on his hands and handstands the 40 yards. He runs 40 yards-
Todd Jones (37:16):
He never rose up to run, he just handstands?
Rick Cleveland (37:20):
I'm talking about he's erect and doing a handstand. He's not on his knees, he never gets up. He handstands 40 yards.
Todd Jones (37:32):
Oh, my God.
Rick Cleveland (37:32):
And I tell that story a lot when I'm doing speaking engagements and people invariably, they say, "Well, what was his time?" And I say, "Hell, I don't know what his time was, but it was a world record."
Todd Jones (37:46):
Yeah, right.
Rick Cleveland (37:48):
I can tell you that. Because ain't nobody else can do it.
Todd Jones (37:52):
Oh, my Lord, I've never heard of such a thing.
Rick Cleveland (37:55):
He was just amazing.
Rick Cleveland (38:11):
Yeah. Walter, when he signed his first contract with the Bears, you probably couldn't do this these days but at that time, his agent, Bud Holmes had a Learjet in Hattiesburg and he said, "Do you want to ride up there for the contract sign?" And I said, "Well, who's on the plane?"
Rick Cleveland (38:38):
He said, "Well, it'll be me, you, the pilot and his mama, Walter's mama, the sweetest lady who ever lived. And Alyne Peyton was her name. And I said, "Sure." And she had never been in an airplane before.
Rick Cleveland (38:59):
And I remember I held her hand taking off and landing because she was scared, frightened to death. And yeah. So, yeah. So, I knew Walter pretty well, and the Super Bowl, in New Orleans at the Superdome.
Todd Jones (39:22):
When the Bears beat the Patriots. Yeah.
Rick Cleveland (39:24):
Yeah. And I'll never forgive Ditka for not giving him the ball there and letting him score the touchdown, instead of the 330-pound nose tackle-
Todd Jones (39:41):
Yeah. Knowing Walter the way you did, do you think that really bothered Walter, that he didn't get a chance to score a touchdown?
Rick Cleveland (39:46):
It bothered the hell out of him. At first, he wouldn't come out for the press conference. In fact, Bud Holmes had to go into the locker room and talk him into coming out and doing the post-game press conference. Yeah.
Todd Jones (40:05):
Well, you think about his career began with sleights, right?
Rick Cleveland (40:08):
Oh, yeah.
Rick Cleveland (40:09):
He was fighting it from the very beginning, coming out of high school, and here it is in the Super Bowl, the greatest moment for the Bears and for his own career. And they choose not to give him the ball on the goal line to score a touchdown.
Rick Cleveland (40:23):
And people forget that early in his career, they were terrible.
Todd Jones (40:28):
Right.
Rick Cleveland (40:29):
I remember it was either his rookie year or his second season. I was in Chicago at Soldier Field, and the Rushing Race came down to, seems like it was him and OJ.
Todd Jones (40:46):
I think you're right. Yeah.
Rick Cleveland (40:50):
And he sprained an ankle early in the game and didn't get enough yards. And he finished second in the NFL, on a team that won like two or three games. Those were some bad Bear teams he played on early in his career.
Todd Jones (41:09):
Right.
Rick Cleveland (41:10):
He's the best all-around football player I've ever seen. People don't know this, but he punted and kicked extra points at Jackson State.
Todd Jones (41:24):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (41:24):
I think he threw six or seven touchdown passes with the Bears. He could really throw the ball too. And like I say, he was the best blocker ever. I can't imagine how good a strong safety he would've been if he'd have played on the other side of the ball.
Rick Cleveland (41:42):
He's just a fabulous, fabulous player who worked harder at it than anybody else. Archie Manning told me … one time they got together in Jackson and he was going to try to do Payton's off season, worked out with him. And Archie said, "I lasted 10 minutes." He said, "I was throwing up after 10 minutes."
Todd Jones (42:09):
Well, that's what sets the greatness of "Sweetness" apart. Walter, was running up those hills with-
Rick Cleveland (42:17):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (42:18):
With that chip on his shoulder, to show everybody.
Rick Cleveland (42:21):
Yeah. Up the Levy at the Pearl River, which runs right through Jackson. Yeah, he was.
Todd Jones (42:30):
You think about it, Peyton, Rice, Archie Manning, McNair, you mentioned Brett Favre. He goes on to this career where he becomes this legendary player. He was kind of John Madden's toy. Madden loved Favre and Favre became this guy.
Todd Jones (42:46):
But you knew him back when he was just a kid. Growing up, did you think Brett Favre was ever going to become who Brett Favre became?
Rick Cleveland (42:58):
I didn't really cover him in high school or anything. Nobody knew who he was. He played for his dad down on the coast, which is a good way, Mississippi's a long state and we're right in the middle. He was way down at the bottom.
Rick Cleveland (43:14):
And he didn't make All-State or anything like that because his dad was his coach and they ran the wing-T. So, he either ran or handed the ball off. I think he averaged four passes a game, his senior year of high school.
Todd Jones (43:31):
Really? I never knew that. Wow.
Rick Cleveland (43:33):
The day before national signing day, his senior year in high school, he thought he was going to Delta State, which is a division 2 school in Mississippi. He had no division 1 offers.
Rick Cleveland (43:51):
And then Southern Miss lost a quarterback, somebody that had committed to them got an offer from Alabama. And that opened up a scholarship at Southern Miss. And the coach called and offered him the scholarship and he took it.
Rick Cleveland (44:13):
The reason he got number four, the reason he always wore number four is when he got to Southern, he's going through the line to get assigned the jersey, and they said, "What number you want?" He said, "Well, I wore 10 in high school, I'd love to have number 10."
Rick Cleveland (44:31):
And they said, "You can't have that one," because Reggie Collier wore that, he was a great quarterback at Southern Miss. And the jersey had been retired.
Rick Cleveland (44:42):
And he said, "Well, how about 12?" Roger Staubach was one of my favorite players. And he said, "Can't have 12, somebody's already got it." And he said, "Well, what about 18?" I loved Archer Manning. And he said, "Can't have 18 either. And that's already taken.
Rick Cleveland (45:00):
He said, "Well, what's available for a quarterback. And they said, "Well, there's four." He said, "I'll take it." That's how he became number four.
Todd Jones (45:11):
And stayed number four.
Rick Cleveland (45:12):
Stayed number four. Yeah. First time I covered him, Southern Miss was playing a home game against Tulane. They're down by two touchdowns at halftime. They had planned to red-shirt him because he had run the wing team, it was totally different than what they were running at the time.
Rick Cleveland (45:40):
And so, they were going to red-shirt him, but it was desperate. They were not very good. And they were getting beaten at home by Tulane, by two touchdowns.
Rick Cleveland (45:52):
And in the third quarter, the head coach whose name was Jim Carmody, he said, "Alright, we're going to play. Well, we ain't got anything to lose. We're going to have to throw the ball to win this game. And he's the strongest arm we got."
Rick Cleveland (46:08):
So, they put him in, Todd, the first time he goes back in the pocket, he throws a button hook pattern to a receiver. I think it was a slot receiver. And the guy turned around and the ball like embedded in his stomach.
Todd Jones (46:29):
What? Like a cartoon?
Rick Cleveland (46:32):
It hurt. You could see him visibly get knocked back by the football. And he throws two touchdowns and runs for another one, and they come from behind and beat Tulane.
Rick Cleveland (46:46):
The next week, they played Texas A&M, and he's the starter. And at that point in his career, he couldn't do anything except throw fast balls. He just threw it so hard. The receivers, you'd go down there and the receivers, you'd be interviewing them and you know that commercial they did where the receivers all have crooked fingers that looked deformed, it was true. They really were.
Todd Jones (47:22):
He was busting digits.
Rick Cleveland (47:23):
Yeah. I remember covering a game when they played at East Carolina and he leads them down the field, they're behind with two minutes to go get the ball inside their own 10. And he leads them down the field and they scored.
Rick Cleveland (47:42):
But he threw one, I was down on the field already to do the post-game interviews. And so, I'm watching from the sideline, and he throws this 45-yard pass that never gets more than eight feet off the ground. It's just a bullet, 45 yards across the field.
Rick Cleveland (48:05):
And the receiver turned around just as the ball got there and caught it and goes out of bounds inside the five-yard line. And everybody was talking to Favre after the game, and I went and talked to the receiver, little bitty guy, and I said, "Alfred, how did you know? What I want to know is how you knew to turn around and catch that ball?"
Rick Cleveland (48:29):
He said, "Because I heard it." I said, "What?" He said, "No, I heard the football coming." And I said, "Come on now. Tell me the truth." And he said, "No, you can always hear Brett's pass is coming."
Todd Jones (48:48):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (48:49):
Yeah. Have you ever heard such? I had never heard of anything like that at the time. His passes actually whistled through the wind.
Todd Jones (48:59):
Wow. Well, that might explain why he became one of the all-time great quarterbacks in the NFL history.
Todd Jones (49:08):
And it's unfortunate that lately Brett's been in the news for a lot of bad things, with the news about the welfare agency that he is been seeking money from and all this.
Todd Jones (49:21):
You've known Favre forever. What do you think about some of what's going on with an NFL legend like that now?
Rick Cleveland (49:29):
Well, I'm really disappointed in him. That's the only way to put it. I'm really, really disappointed. It's my organization in Mississippi, today that's been on the forefront of breaking all that news. We have a reporter named Anna Wolfe, who's just done an amazing job.
Todd Jones (49:47):
Yeah. He's been seeking millions of dollars from the Mississippi Welfare Agency to fund a new football facility at Southern Miss, a volleyball arena. It's been big news down in your home.
Rick Cleveland (49:58):
Yeah. All I can say about it is I'm very, very disappointed in him.
Todd Jones (50:07):
Yeah, yeah. Well, one quarterback that's legendary Mississippi, who has an un-impeached reputation is Archie Manning. And you mentioned Archie, and Archie obviously the father of Payton and Eli, but young folks might not realize Archie was a such a great quarterback himself.
Todd Jones (50:29):
He went on to play for the New Orleans Saints for 10 years, 71 to 81, and really got his ass beaten by a bunch of bad teams, and yet was a heck of a player. He was an NFC Player of the Year, in 1978 on a losing team.
Rick Cleveland (50:45):
'79, and he's NFC Player of the Year.
Todd Jones (50:50):
Yeah.
Rick Cleveland (50:52):
I remember talking to Roger Staubach and Archie and Roger Staubach played a lot, a lot. They threw on the run a lot. And both were great athletes. Not just great quarterbacks, but great athletes.
Rick Cleveland (51:11):
And I asked Roger, I said, "What was the difference between you, a pro football Hall of Famer that won Super Bowls and everything, and Archie?" And he said, "Just luck." He said, "I played for Dallas, one coach my whole career. Archie played for the New Orleans Saints. I don't even know how many coaches he had."
Rick Cleveland (51:40):
Archie tells a great story about being in the huddle and at that time that they used tight ends to send in the plays with, and tight end comes in the play in the huddle and gives Archie the play and says, Archie said, "Wait a second, who are you?" The Saints had signed him the day before. He didn't even know him.
Rick Cleveland (52:13):
But I’d tell you of all the people I've ever covered, Archie Manning is the best human being and the way his sons are, it's a direct reflection of the way Archie and Olivia Manning raised them.
Todd Jones (52:33):
Well Archie, his legend began back in college, '68, '69, '70 at Ole Miss.
Rick Cleveland (52:40):
At Ole Miss.
Todd Jones (52:42):
They wrote songs about the man, The ballad of Archie Who.
Rick Cleveland (52:46):
Yeah. The ballad of Archie Who, it was number one. You couldn't turn on the radio station in 1969, in Mississippi and not hear The ballad of Archie Who.
Todd Jones (52:58):
Do you know any of the lyrics still?
Rick Cleveland (53:02):
I remember the way it finished was, the best rooting tooting quarterback who ever played the game. Yeah.
Todd Jones (53:12):
That's a pretty good finish to a song.
Rick Cleveland (53:15):
Yeah. Well, he was an amazing player to watch. He finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting, his senior season, and he missed three games with a broken arm.
Todd Jones (53:34):
Right. He played the Sugar Bowl with a broken arm.
Rick Cleveland (53:37):
Actually, it was the Gator Bowl-
Todd Jones (53:39):
The Gator Bowl. I'm sorry.
Rick Cleveland (53:39):
That he played Auburn and he hadn't played — well, he actually played against LSU. They tried to play against LSU, and he had a cast on his arm. He played with a cast and then he played in the Gator Bowl. And I think Auburn won the game 35 to 28. But he was fabulous.
Rick Cleveland (54:04):
He was the MVP in the Sugar Bowl as a sophomore at Ole Miss. He was a great player on another fairly mediocre team.
Todd Jones (54:18):
You mentioned him as being one of your all-time favorites. Obviously, a great player, but what made him so special to you as a writer, reporter over the years, the working relationship that you had with Archie?
Rick Cleveland (54:32):
I'll give you one story that encapsulizes why I feel the way I do about Archie is that, this is at the end of his career. He spent all those years getting beat up with the Saints, and then they trade him to Houston. He gets beat up there and they trade him to Minnesota. And they're terrible. The Vikings are terrible.
Rick Cleveland (55:02):
This is ... gosh, when would this be? This would be like '83, '84. They weren't very good. Les Steckel was the head coach, and Wade Wilson was actually the starting quarterback.
Rick Cleveland (55:18):
But I remember they were playing a Thursday night game and I remember getting home from work and turning it on, just hoping that Archie might get a chance. They might get so far behind, that he gets a chance to play.
Rick Cleveland (55:37):
And that's exactly what happened. They're behind 31 to nothing at halftime. And they put Archie-
Todd Jones (55:44):
31 to nothing.
Rick Cleveland (55:44):
They put Archie in the game, I think, because they were afraid Wade Wilson was going to get killed.
Todd Jones (55:53):
Let's put the stunt double in.
Rick Cleveland (55:55):
Yeah. So, they put Archie in and he just turns back the clock. He's scrambling all over the field, throwing darts, they end up losing. But he made it a one score game in the fourth quarter.
Rick Cleveland (56:10):
And I had already written a column for the next day's paper, but I called him in and said, "I'm rewriting, we'll save the other one. I'm going to rewrite about Archie." And I wrote a column just basically, about him turning back the clock after all these years.
Rick Cleveland (56:26):
And so, the next afternoon I'm in my office at the Clarion-Ledger, and about two o'clock in the afternoon the phone rings, and I recognize the voice immediately. It was Archie and he was calling from Minneapolis.
Rick Cleveland (56:43):
And I said, "Archie, what's going on, man?" He said, "I'm just calling to thank you." And I said, "For what?" He said, "For the column you wrote in today's Jackson Daily News." And I said, "Well, we got a pretty good circulation in Mississippi, but we don't circulate much in Minneapolis."
Rick Cleveland (57:07):
And this was before the internet. I said, "Well, how do you know about it?" He said, "Because my mama called me and read me every word of it."
Todd Jones (57:20):
Wow.
Rick Cleveland (57:24):
Let's face it, Todd, you've done what I do. You don't get many calls like that from professional athletes.
Rick Cleveland (57:45):
That's Archie in a nutshell. There's so many stories that never get out about things that he's done behind the scenes for people, kids that are dying and stuff like that. And he doesn't want it ever to be publicized. He's basically doing it because that's the way he'd want to be treated if it was him.
Todd Jones (59:08):
We've talked a lot of NFL and these great stars that have come out of Mississippi, and as we wrap this up, we'd be very remiss to not talk a little bit about college football.
Todd Jones (59:20):
And I wanted to ask you specifically about the Ole Miss Mississippi State rivalry, the Egg Bowl, as it is known. Now, there's a lot of great rivalries in sports, and especially in college football. You think Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Auburn, throughout the country.
Todd Jones (59:41):
Now the one down in Mississippi might not get as much national pub all the time, but tell us about what it's been like to cover that rivalry, which began in 1901, and why is it so fierce?
Rick Cleveland (59:54):
Well, the rivalry predates football. Ole Miss was, I guess what you'd call the flagship Mississippi University created in 1848. And it was resented and it was considered a school for the rich people, the planters, Delta planters, the plantation owners.
Rick Cleveland (01:00:27):
So, Mississippi State was created basically for another class of people. They always thought that Ole Miss was the favored university, Mississippi State created, there's a resentment before. There was even a sport of football.
Todd Jones (01:00:52):
So, it's in the DNA of the rivalry.
Rick Cleveland (01:00:54):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (01:00:55):
It's baked right in there.
Rick Cleveland (01:00:57):
Right. And so, football gave them a way to legally fight.
Rick Cleveland (01:01:08):
And they have-
Rick Cleveland (01:01:09):
And they have, over-
Todd Jones (01:01:10):
The whole idea of the Egg Bowl comes from the-
Rick Cleveland (01:01:15):
The Egg Bowl trophy, which was created after-
Todd Jones (01:01:19):
1926. The Brawl.
Rick Cleveland (01:01:20):
Yeah. Ole Miss wins a game at Starkville. They're about to tear down the gold posts and people come out and start beating them with folding chairs and stuff.
Todd Jones (01:01:35):
Pro wrestling.
Rick Cleveland (01:01:37):
Yeah. And so, the student bodies got together and created an Egg Bowl trophy that maybe they could present instead of having the goalpost torn down.
Todd Jones (01:01:50):
The Golden Egg Trophy, they called it, the Golden Egg.
Rick Cleveland (01:01:52):
Yeah. And it became the Egg Bowl. What's really interesting, especially for this show, is the reason the Egg Bowl is called The Egg Bowl is because Tom Patterson — do you know who I'm talking about? That was-
Todd Jones (01:02:07):
Sports editor.
Rick Cleveland (01:02:07):
Yeah. Who later was with the National and he spent time in Atlanta and Denver, but he was the sports editor of the Clarion-Ledger and Jackson Daily News. And he had put together these staff, he had a staff of 27 sports writers, and we were winning all kinds of national APSE awards.
Todd Jones (01:02:35):
Right.
Rick Cleveland (01:02:36):
But we couldn't win special section because our teams wouldn't go to a big event. They weren't good enough to go to a big event. They weren't going to bowl games.
Rick Cleveland (01:02:45):
So, Tom decided to create his own bowl, and he started calling it the Battle for the Golden Egg, the Egg Bowl. And we would cover that game and put out a special section. We'd have 12 writers and eight photographers covering the game.
Todd Jones (01:03:07):
Wow. It was like your Super Bowl. Right?
Rick Cleveland (01:03:10):
It was. And I remember, the first year I was at the Clarion-Ledger was in 1979, and the Mississippi State beat rider. It was Emory Bellard's first season as the head coach at Mississippi State. And I had two assignments that game, I covered the first quarter, my assignments was to write 800 words on the first quarter. We didn't just do a game story; we did quarter stories.
Todd Jones (01:03:43):
Oh, my Lord.
Rick Cleveland (01:03:46):
I've got 800 words on the first quarter, and guess what the score was at the end of the first quarter?
Todd Jones (01:03:50):
Zero to zero.
Rick Cleveland (01:03:52):
Zero-zero. And my other side-
Todd Jones (01:03:56):
Wait a minute. Lincoln said 280 words at Gettysburg, you had to do 800 words.
Rick Cleveland (01:04:02):
800 words on a-
Todd Jones (01:04:02):
On a zero-zero, first quarter.
Rick Cleveland (01:04:05):
First quarter. Yeah. And my other side, I had to do a sidebar, I had to follow the Bulldog mascot and another poor guy had to cover Colonel Reb, the Ole Miss Rebel mascot.
Todd Jones (01:04:20):
The mascot bit.
Rick Cleveland (01:04:21):
Yeah. I had the mascot. Well, it's still the Egg Bowl. And it did win first place in the APSE contest that year. So, Patterson got … God rest his soul.
Todd Jones (01:04:35):
I think it was those scintillating 800 words about a zero to zero first quarter.
Rick Cleveland (01:04:39):
I don't think anybody read it. I'll be honest with you.
Todd Jones (01:04:44):
As an old sports writer in Cincinnati once told me, "They can make you write it, but they can't make you read it."
Rick Cleveland (01:04:48):
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. But that's the way the Egg Bowl became the Egg Bowl. And there's controversy just about every year.
Rick Cleveland (01:05:02):
Two years ago, the game was decided when the Ole Miss players scored a touchdown in the last few sectors and acted like a dog peeing in the end zone. They get a 15-yard penalty, all they got to do is kick the extra point to tie the game, send it into overtime. Well, they get a 15-yard penalty and it becomes a 37-yard field goal and he misses it.
Todd Jones (01:05:33):
That's one of my favorite-
Rick Cleveland (01:05:35):
Well, that's how-
Todd Jones (01:05:37):
Touch down celebrations of all time.
Rick Cleveland (01:05:39):
That's how Lane Kiffin got to Oxford. The Ole Miss coach got fired because of that game. That was the last straw. If they'd have won the game, he'd have kept his job.
Todd Jones (01:05:50):
Well, I think having one of your players imitate a dog urinating in the end zone might be the last straw.
Rick Cleveland (01:05:59):
Well yeah, and it did, it got him fired. And so, now Lane Kiffin's the head coach.
Todd Jones (01:06:09):
Changed college football history, sent Lane to Ole Miss.
Rick Cleveland (01:06:12):
There you go.
Todd Jones (01:06:15):
Well, I'll tell you what, Rick, this has been a treasure trove of great stories from down south and it's been so much fun. There's so many other ones I wanted to hit you up on, but we had some great, great memories come forth here.
Todd Jones (01:06:29):
I really appreciate this. It's been a lot of fun just chatting with you about some of the athletes and stories and events that you covered and an amazing career, 57 years.
Rick Cleveland (01:06:40):
Well, I appreciate Todd, it’s almost all we needed was a beer and it’d been like we were sitting in a bar telling stories.
Todd Jones (01:06:48):
And we will get that beer sometime, Rick, down the road. We thank you for spending time with us and wish you all the best.
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