Chucks Mullins and Brad Gaines

That's going to be a difficult one to watch.

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That's going to be a difficult one to watch.

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The room always seems to get dusty.

Already getting teary eyed thinking about the special Sportscenter did on it about a decade ago.

You really have to feel sorry for Brad Gaines. He took it and still takes it personally. It's something he'll never get over

I was at that game. It was the last Ole Miss game I attended before moving back to Charleston ... just in time for Hugo to destroy my home on the IOP.

I'll never forget the play, or the ride back to Olive Branch. We listened to radio updates all the way and the news kept getting progressively worse. The entire Rebel Nation was devastated. People were crying as we left Vaught-Hemmingway. By the time we got in The Grove rumors were swirling that he had died.

I remember talking to Charlie MacAlexander about it some years later when he was doing play-by-play for the Gamecocks. Charlie had done play-by-play at Ole Miss but was doing play-by-play for Vandy when the tragedy occurred ... I remember him telling me how devastated Vandy fans were after the game and how some of their players were crying on the way home and how silent the ride home was.

Looking back, it all seems sort of surreal now. Man it was a beautiful day in Oxford.

Mullins was taken to the Baptist hospital in Memphis ... it's since been torn down. But I remember fans from both Vandy and Ole Miss showing-up at the hospital with signs and flowers for Mullins, and all the coverage it got on the local news for weeks. It was a true outpouring of emotions - something the SEC is not well-known for off the field, but it was one of those rare occasions when everyone seemed to come together. I saw fans from Bama out there, Tennessee, Kentucky. The hospital got so many flowers that they had to put out a press release for them to stop and instead spend the money on donations to the spinal injury research foundation and the money poured-in.

Seems like a long time ago.

At the games that year, they passed around collection buckets for Chucky. It was very sad.

I think Gaines visits Chucky on Christmas Day, in addition to the other days, because he said "no one deserves to be alone on Christmas" or something to that effect. Very touching

very good read on the topic..