Column on Game of Change

[MSU Fan.sixpack]

https://www.stripes.com/sports/what...not-much-despite-what-you-might-hear-1.518174

 

[BulldogBlitz]

This thing reads like a "pick a side: Martin Luther king Jr or Malcolm x".

 

[00Dawg]

Feels really slanted.

Did anything change? Not on a drastic scale.
However, he could've easily pointed to the game as being another barrier broken that helped trigger an increase in violence...you can't point to it alone as that given the riots in Oxford the previous year. Another milestone in the (violent) death throes of a societal framework that was rapidly falling apart.

Or, he could've framed it as a game of hope, since it clearly demonstrated there was a portion of the population who was simply tired of toeing the line, and was willing to buck the authorities when push came to shove.

Perhaps more disappointing is that Giesen's comments seem skewed as well. Were they risking their lives like the voter registration example? Probably not. However, all parties involved were risking jail time and possible physical abuse, and careers were on the line as well.
I also don't appreciate the insinuation that the student protesters had in mind white superiority as the reason to play. That's the first I've ever heard that mentioned. It is impossible? No, but surely that would've come up as much coverage as the events received, if only for use by white supremacist propaganda. Honestly, this feels a little like the claims that State students drove to Oxford by the truckload to riot in '62 (yet somehow couldn't be bothered to raise a hand when Dr. Holmes made it to our own campus).

 

[msstatelp1]

Well I guess Jessie Owens winning those medals at the 1936 Olympics meant nothing and shouldn't be commerated cause Hitler.still killed 6 million Jews and caused innumerable other deaths.

The writer is an idiot if he really thought a basketball game would change a state full of people. He missed the significance by a million miles. That game wasn't a dam buster, but it was a crack in the dam of segregation. It did not lead to an immediate overthrow of segregation but for 1963 it was an eye opener.

 

[Bobby Ricigliano]

Giesen says, "The triumphant narrative of the overall documentary made me uncomfortable."

I guess it didn't make him uncomfortable enough that he doesn't have a problem listing it on his CV:
"Interviewed for and appear (sic) in Game of Change (Pathway Productions, 2008), a documentary about the 1963 Mississippi State University basketball game against Loyola University"

https://www.history.msstate.edu/people/james-c-giesen/

 

[AROB44]

Did anything change? Not on a drastic scale.
However, he could've easily pointed to the game as being another barrier broken that helped trigger an increase in violence...you can't point to it alone as that given the riots in Oxford the previous year. Another milestone in the (violent) death throes of a societal framework that was rapidly falling apart.

Or, he could've framed it as a game of hope, since it clearly demonstrated there was a portion of the population who was simply tired of toeing the line, and was willing to buck the authorities when push came to shove.

Perhaps more disappointing is that Giesen's comments seem skewed as well. Were they risking their lives like the voter registration example? Probably not. However, all parties involved were risking jail time and possible physical abuse, and careers were on the line as well.
I also don't appreciate the insinuation that the student protesters had in mind white superiority as the reason to play. That's the first I've ever heard that mentioned. It is impossible? No, but surely that would've come up as much coverage as the events received, if only for use by white supremacist propaganda. Honestly, this feels a little like the claims that State students drove to Oxford by the truckload to riot in '62 (yet somehow couldn't be bothered to raise a hand when Dr. Holmes made it to our own campus).

Hate to tell you that this is a fact. I didn't go, but witnessed many many carloads leaving to go. Knew quite a few that did go. If you saw life magazine back then, I think you will see pictures of students wearing MSU jackets.

 

[Dawgpile]

Perhaps more disappointing is that Giesen's comments seem skewed as well. Were they risking their lives like the voter registration example? Probably not. However, all parties involved were risking jail time and possible physical abuse, and careers were on the line as well.

This. There was risk for all who bucked the system back then.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

Game of change didn't make an immediate impact, because Ole Miss fans didn't...

...want it to. When THE Mississippi State University defied the Ole Miss Reichstag to go play an integrated team, this set the Rebel fans Statewide off.

Notice that our sports teams in the mid and late '60's sucked? That was because Ole Miss categorized us as the "Race-miscengenators", the "people who though black people were equal to white people". This made it hard for Mississippians to want to play for THE Mississippi State University, because we had leaders and students who cared more about the content of a man's character.

Ole Miss fans reacted to our act of "treachery" by killing Medgar Evers, the three civil rights workers, Vernon Dahmer, and shooting James Meredith.

It's because of Ole Miss that our State is 50th in everything.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

There were a lot of State students who DID to Oxford. However, after watching the horror and carnage of what happened, THE Mississippi State University fans, students, alumni, and leadership realized that following Ole Miss as the Flagship University would yield the same results as following Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II.

 

[RocketDawg]

...want it to. When THE Mississippi State University defied the Ole Miss Reichstag to go play an integrated team, this set the Rebel fans Statewide off.

Notice that our sports teams in the mid and late '60's sucked? That was because Ole Miss categorized us as the "Race-miscengenators", the "people who though black people were equal to white people". This made it hard for Mississippians to want to play for THE Mississippi State University, because we had leaders and students who cared more about the content of a man's character.

Ole Miss fans reacted to our act of "treachery" by killing Medgar Evers, the three civil rights workers, Vernon Dahmer, and shooting James Meredith.

It's because of Ole Miss that our State is 50th in everything.

Were you around back then? I was, and I certainly don't remember it being that way. I can assure you that it wasn't just Ole Miss fans who felt that way.

 

[mstateglfr]

...want it to. When THE Mississippi State University defied the Ole Miss Reichstag to go play an integrated team, this set the Rebel fans Statewide off.

Notice that our sports teams in the mid and late '60's sucked? That was because Ole Miss categorized us as the "Race-miscengenators", the "people who though black people were equal to white people". This made it hard for Mississippians to want to play for THE Mississippi State University, because we had leaders and students who cared more about the content of a man's character.

Ole Miss fans reacted to our act of "treachery" by killing Medgar Evers, the three civil rights workers, Vernon Dahmer, and shooting James Meredith.

It's because of Ole Miss that our State is 50th in everything.

Mutt gonna Mutt.
Just another time where Mutt rants almost incoherently and certainly inaccurately.
Trying to rewrite history this time.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

Mutt gonna Mutt.
Just another time where Mutt rants almost incoherently and certainly inaccurately.
Trying to rewrite history this time.

So...you're for the racist Ole Miss ********. Didn't realize your Socialism was NATIONAL Socialism.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

There were probably a handful of Mississippi State White Supremacists

There's also Black Conservatives....also few and far between.

 

[mstateglfr]

So...you're for the racist Ole Miss ********. Didn't realize your Socialism was NATIONAL Socialism.

Mutt gonna Mutt some more by misinterpreting a post and drawing an illogical concluaion.

No, i am not for racist ********. Didnt say i was, didnt suggest i was, and certainly am not.

Also not a socialist and that has 0 to do with the thread or your misrepresentation of history.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

Vichy Bulldog

 

[00Dawg]

So after several attempts at an online image search...

I can't find a single State logo. Lots of UM ones, of course, and shame on whomever designed those beanie-style ball caps. Those things are cartoonish.
Also notable that there's a severe lack of photos available online from what should've been the heaviest period of conflict. I suppose tear gas and sniper fire didn't mix well with cameras, but there's plenty of war photos from the same era.

Anyway, if someone's got a copy of the magazine referenced (or a firsthand State-based account from the campus), please share.