re: ESPN 30 for 30: Ghosts of Ole Miss

Just messing with you.

This thread turned into the brawl from Anchorman.

As an Ole Miss grad, I watched it last night with some understandable trepidation. However, I thought it was an excellent show, really one of the best in the 30-for-30 series.

It's a terrible episode in the University's history and in the history of the country. But history is what it is, warts and all, and the only way we can move forward is to know where we've been. I wish they had focused a bit more on the changes that have happened at Ole Miss since then--I doubt Hugh Freeze will be handing out copies to recruits--but I think overall it ended on a positive note for Ole Miss.

In some ways, Ole Miss is the capital of "Forget Hell" country. Sometimes I think it's the embodiment of the Faulkner quote which was referenced in the show: "The past is not dead. It's not even past." Maybe more than anywhere else in the South, Ole Miss has struggled with how to move forward into the future while not completely forgetting the past. For members of older generations, especially, Ole Miss is sometimes seen as the last bastion of Southern pride, and depending on your perspective that's either a good or a bad thing.

Things are much different at Ole Miss now, even from the years I spent there in the early 90s. The students, and most of the faculty and community, have for the most part put the past behind them. It's not forgotten, but it's not dwelt upon either. The arguments over Colonel Reb and Dixie still go on, and probably always will unitl the baby boomers pass on, taking with them both the guilt and indigation that's the legacy of 1962.