Column: Ole Miss vs. Troy, a game that hits home

OXFORD, Miss. – It is here. It is finally here. It is game week. For me, it is a little bit more than that. It is personal.

When Troy visits Vaught-Hemingway Stadium to take on Ole Miss Saturday, it will be a game between the two schools that mean the most to me.

This marks my tenth season covering Ole Miss, my eighth with The Rebel Walk.

I worked for five years in the Troy sports information department and covered the Trojans for various outlets for another decade.

It is safe to say I know these two schools. They helped form who I am today.

I loved my time in Oxford. My first home was in Kincannon Hall, then in the then-East Towers that overlooked sorority row. I remember the life-long friends I made there. Patrick, Caron, Ruth, Chris, Bull, Lang and others. I remember six of us packing up in a guy’s old Delta 88, nicknamed the Land Yacht, to drive all day to get to Shreveport to see the Rebels lose to Air Force in the Independence Bowl. That game ended 9-3 in one of the worst storms I have ever sat in to watch a ballgame, and I still call it the sloppiest soccer game in history.

There were trips to Rowan Oak, the Gin, the Warehouse, the Square. Trips to Jackson because Ole Miss played the “big” games in Mississippi Memorial, including the Egg Bowl.

In Troy, there were road trips to nearby Montgomery and Dothan. There were parties in the Dozier Park where we simply roamed up and down the streets after a big win. There was The Porch and the greatest party I ever attended, the Masch Bash, to commemorate the graduation of a friend. That soiree included off-duty cops staying for the party, a deck collapsing under the weight of all the people and watching my boss get run over by a purple jeep. Don’t worry, he was okay.

Who I became professionally can be traced to Ole Miss and Troy.

When I was in Oxford, I took my first college journalism classes. My first teacher was David Kellum and he made me want to be a broadcaster. Eventually, I was able to broadcast college football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, and softball as well as arena football. If not for Kellum, who remains the Voice of the Rebels. I would have never been able to do that.

My first writing teacher taught me the KISS technique. Keep It Simple Stupid. I still try to use that.

At Troy, I learned to use my personality in writing. I did not learn that in a class, but by working in sports information. I struggled in a journalism class and a writer friend of mine gave me a great piece of advice: “If you can write, there are some people who can help you; if you can’t write, there is no one who can teach you and you can write.”

I soon became a history major.

My writing style came from being turned loose to write all I could. My boss allowed me to write the football game notes, the daily practice notes and eventually I was able to be a stringer for the newspapers who did not travel with the teams.

Eventually I became a sports information director, a sports editor, a managing editor and now here I am still typing about ball games. The great broadcaster Ernie Johnson once said he had a “get to job,” not a “got to job.”

Simply put, that means Johnson, and I, have jobs we get to do. Not jobs we’ve got to do.

And this week, I get to write about a football game between the two schools that mean the most to me. Will I silently be rooting for a certain team? Maybe. Will the reader know which team that would be? No.

No matter the outcome, my game story will be objective.

That is something I learned from great mentors at Ole Miss and Troy.

(Feature image credit: Ole Miss Athletics)

Steve Barnes

Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.

He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.

A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.

Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.

He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.

Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.