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BORN IN MAROON AND WHITE Mullen celebrates more than nine decades of MSU service, fandom By Emily Cambre, Photos submitted
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any people claim to be lifelong Mississippi State fans, but few can claim the kind of lifetime devotion shown by Tom Mullen. At 98 years old, he has decades of Bulldog loyalty on even the most diehard fans around. A Starkville native, Mullen was born into the Maroon and White life. His mother attended the university and graduated in 1913, while his father worked at Mississippi State as assistant manager in the big laundry located on campus. Mullen’s love for Mississippi State only grew when he started attending MSU sporting events, especially baseball. Even as a child, Mississippi State baseball was his favorite sport to watch, which still stands true today. “My mother would come, pick me up from school and take me out to baseball games. And they were always in the daylight, no night games then,” Mullen recalled of the time before stadium lights were around. “My father was coming back from work and he’d picked me up after the game to take me home. I had it made and it didn’t cost anything to go to a game. Whether we won or lost, I loved to see those baseball games. If you were there, you enjoyed it.” Mullen said after all of those experiences, he knew there was only one place to go after graduating high school. “My connections have all been to State, from the time that my mother went there,” Mullen said. “My whole family was connected to State in some way. And I think that Mississippi State treated us all well.” Mullen decided to major in chemical engineering following in the footsteps of his cousin. “He was a year ahead of me and studying chemical engineering,” Mullen said. “I thought, well, I want to do the same thing. I always liked chemistry and just felt that that was the thing I wanted to do.”
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