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New hope for Ole Miss By JAKE ADAMS
Featured Columnist
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ou may have seen new Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork in any number of places in his first two weeks on the job - Swayze Field (I spotted him there and there’s photographic evidence that he made his way to the outfield, too), Vaught-Hemingway Stadium (saw him there, too -- both on the field and on the jumbotron), and from Gulfport to Memphis to the Mississippi Delta and all the way over to Nashville. You may have even seen Bjork’s larger than life image on the side of a red and blue bus. Bjork’s been just about everywhere a cluster of Ole Miss fans can be found in his first few weeks. The one place where you probably couldn’t find Bjork was in his office. “You can’t do this job from behind a desk,” Bjork told just about anybody who will listen. And that’s a lot of people. In two weeks Bjork has spoken on dozens of radio shows, made television appearances and personally introduced himself to hundreds if not thousands of Ole Miss fans. Bjork’s just the newest face at Ole Miss not the only one. Hugh Freeze just finished his first spring practice and is enjoying those rare months where he’s still undefeated (0-0 to be precise) and the possibility still exists that he may never lose a game (slight, but it could happen). From the time he was introduced, Freeze was embraced for his youthful excitement, the joy he professed in landing his dream job at Ole Miss, the anticipation of a prolific offense (so we hear) and the hope that he can build a team that believes in itself again, or at least one that’s got some fight in it. It’s the honeymoon phase at Ole Miss, and if any school’s fanbase deserves a carefree celebratory honeymoon it’s the poor Rebel faithful. They’ve spent the last two years walking through the deepest, darkest valleys of Southeastern Conference woe.
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When Freeze was introduced on the Ole Miss campus last December he acknowledged he was taking over a team that was lost in the wilderness. The same could be said for the entire athletic program. The last couple years have truly been a winter in the history of Ole Miss sports, but with the hiring of Freeze and now Bjork the warmth of spring is finally starting to show its face. They’ve lived through losses to Jacksonville State, Louisiana Tech, Vanderbilt, 3rd string running backs with 150-yard games, 50-point losses and perhaps worst of all - the infamous LSU sympathy knee. They’ve seen three straight losses to a coach from Starkville who refuses to call Ole Miss by name and declares for all the World Wide Web to see that he’ll never lose to Ole Miss again, and what’s worse - he still hasn’t. Ole Miss fans even saw an entire school year go by and half of another without a win against Mississippi State in a major sport. It was enough to drive fans mad, and it actually did. Really mad. Full page ads were published in newspapers. The fanbase was divided. For a time last fall Ole Miss was a real spectacle. When Freeze was introduced on the Ole Miss campus last December he acknowledged he was taking over a team that was lost in the wilderness. The same could be said for the entire athletic program. The last couple of years have truly been a winter in the
history of Ole Miss sports, but with the hiring of Freeze and now Bjork the warmth of spring is finally starting to break through. So you’ll forgive Ole Miss fans if they enjoy their honeymoon with their brand new football coach and their even newer athletic director. It’s a new day at Ole Miss. One where the athletic director finds his way to the student section and where the football coach stands on the field right behind his offense and says things like “staying on schedule” and promises to field a team that will fight hard for 60 minutes. It’s a new day at Ole Miss where thousands of fans on twitter actually get to interact with the athletic director, enjoy inspirational morning messages from their football coach and get the cheap thrill of a “retweet” from @ coachhughfreeze every now and again. The biggest task set before any new athletic director or football coach at Ole Miss was to rally a beaten, fractured fanbase. From my seat it appears Bjork and Freeze have answered the call. They’ve worked tirelessly to inspire new hope, often doing it together, which is fitting because their fates are tied together. Bjork may not have hired Freeze, but his task of raising nearly $100 million gets much easier if Freeze is successful. They have a lot in common, Bjork and Freeze. Bjork is 39. Freeze, 42. They both had lightning quick success as leaders at smaller programs before being given their opportunities at Ole Miss. Freeze had one successful year as head coach of Arkansas State. Bjork was barely the head man at Western Kentucky for two years. They each took that success and rolled the dice on their careers - each thinking he can get the job done at Ole Miss even though you could probably find any number of people outside Rebel Nation who would say they’ve taken on an impossible task. Only one coach left Ole Miss on his own terms in the last 30 years (Tuberville), and everybody knows the expectation of success Bjork inherited. Those expectations might be realistic, or they might not be, but don’t tell Freeze or Bjork it can’t be done, and don’t tell Ole Miss fans either. For right now, anything and everything is possible. From new basketball arenas to expanded football stadiums to SEC Championships and undefeated seasons - it’s all possible. It’s just April. Freeze hasn’t had his first game and Bjork probably hasn’t heard his first gripe, but it’s spring. It’s the honeymoon. Ole Miss fans have earned the right to enjoy it. For right now at least, Bjork and Freeze are two pretty good reasons to feel good about the future of Ole Miss athletics again. - MSM