September 23, 2025 • 35 mins
Sparky Reardon worked in student services for 36 years at Ole Miss, including his final 14 years as the Dean of Students. His stories span the hilarious to the tragic and he is a one-of-a-kind leader who thousands call a mentor and a friend, including Coach Bill Courtney.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
If I could teach college students anything, I would teach
them to be empathetic, to try to understand other people,
to understand where they are. I look at these guys
over here and think they're freshmen and what they're going through,
and they're bringing with them their pain from home. They're
bringing with them their joy, they're bringing them with their successes,
(00:24):
their worries, and when I would deal with them, I'd
always try to understand what's going through this guy's head
or what's going through this woman's head in terms of.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Where are they.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
If we had a class in teaching people how to empathize,
I think we'd be a whole lot better office in society.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I think amen.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Normal folks needed to learn how to do that.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,
and I'm a football coach at Inner City Memphis. And
the last part a few years ago led to an
oscar for the film about a team I coached. It's
called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be
(01:09):
solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits
using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox,
but rather by an army of normal folks. That army
is us just you and me deciding, Hey, you know
what I can help. That is exactly what Sparky Reared
(01:29):
has done his whole life. He's the voice you just heard.
Sparky is a living icon in the Ole miss community,
and he's one of my mentors. He worked in student
affairs for thirty six years, including the last fourteen of
them as the Dean of Students. He's truly a normal
guy who's faced personal and professional challenges, mentored thousands, and
(01:53):
his leadership lessons can benefit the entire army. I genuinely
cannot wait for you to meet my friend and mentor Sparky.
Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, Sparky
(02:20):
Reardon in Oxford, Mississippi. I can't believe him hanging out
with you today.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm surprised too.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Everybody, Welcome to an army of normal folks. We are
live as you can hear with an audience about three
hundred people in Oxford, Mississippi. Today's guest is Sparky Reardon.
Don't really know how to introduce Sparky properly because I
want to say he's my friend, but I almost have
(02:49):
too much reverence for him to call him my friend.
He's been a mentor, he's been a confidant, he's been
an inspiration, and he is my friend. And Sparky worked
in student affairs for thirty six years at my alma
moter Ole Miss, where we are today on campus. In
the last fourteen years of those thirty six years, he
(03:11):
was the Dean of students here, and I count myself
among the lucky ones that spent all of my years
at Old Miss under the tutelage of Sparky. Sparky is
the author of a new book, The Dean Memoirs and Missives,
which is available at Square Books in Oxford for those
(03:32):
of you that are here, but for those listening across
the country, Amazon dot Com and bookstores throughout the Southeast region.
I always say I'm so glad to be with you
to all of my guests, but tonight I really mean it.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'm glad to be here too, and thank you for
having me. I'me to the Ole Miss Women's Council for
making this possible.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, absolutely, I have a quick question for you. But
I got to tell you something that I've never told
you before. I asked the first question that I want
to tell you.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Oh he.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And I thought about this really on the way down here.
I first became aware of you at freshman orientation, which
was in the chapel at that time, when you stood
up in front of everybody with a green jacket on
and said, no, I'm not the Grove, and I thought, well,
that's kind of funny. And he was the Dida students,
(04:31):
and so you know, as a freshman, you spend most
of your time trying to avoid any interaction with the
Dana students because you assume that just means you're in trouble.
So I did things to avoid you. And then as
a sophomore and junior, I became a little more aware
(04:52):
of you. And then as a junior I really became
indebted to you by some things you said to me
after I wrote a column, and then also when I
had this crazy idea to start this thing called the
Charity Ball. And then my senior year I took your
leadership class and grew from you and the weird transformation
(05:19):
that took place over those four year Sparky is I
didn't do things against the rules at first because I
just didn't want to get in trouble and I was
scared of you. By the time I left college, I
wanted to do things right because I didn't want to
disappoint you. Man. I cannot think of a more poignant
(05:48):
example and illustration of what true leadership is when you
convince somebody just through your actions that you are worthy
of not being disappointed. Sparky, you had such an effect
on my life and so many others. And I don't
presume to be the most affected person by you, because
(06:10):
my gosh, there are thousands. But I just want you
to know, on a very personal level, I still to
this day don't want to disappoint you.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I appreciate that, Bill, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I appreciate your praise, and I just don't feel worthy
of it. I just came to work and did what
I did, and I don't deserve all this. I got
paid for what I did. I had a great life
and I loved every second of it, and I put
it in the book, and that's why I ended up
here tonight.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I guess because of the.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Book, maybe, but without the book, without the book, I'd
still want to do this with you, So here we go.
You write in your introduction of the book, I think
it was Mark Twain who said the two most important
days in your life or the day you were born
and the day you figure out why. Tell us some
(07:02):
day up the day you figure out why you were born.
I think it was the day I retired.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Really yeah, that when I look back on everything that
was given to me, the people who supported me, the
opportunities that I was given, I realized how blessed I was.
And I guess my wife a lot of it has
to do with my faith and that I feel like
that we have an obligation to lead, to chastise, to rebuke,
(07:32):
and I did some of that, but to also serve.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And I like to think that some of what I
did was service.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You tell a story about when it clicked that you thought, hey,
I might want to be a dentist students, it was
actually when you were in trouble or something.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I think, well, I was a social chairman of my fraternity.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
That's already a ticket to trouble.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And Lester Williams to tell you I was real damn
good too.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Good in fact, that Tom Hines called me to his office,
who was the director of student activities at the time.
It was it could have been a curfew violation, a
noise violation, a fight, or could have been that there
was some alcohol involved.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I'm not sure, but.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I had I was a pre law major and I
had no interest in being a lawyer. Everybody in Clarksdale
had told me I was involved in debate, I was
involved in student leadership, did stuff with the church, and
everybody said, well, you need to go to law school
at Old Miss, you need to go to law school
at Ole Miss. And that came from some men that
(08:42):
I greatly admired. So I came to law school at
ole Miss and had about a two point twenty four
by freshman year and didn't supersede that the second semester.
So I had no idea what I wanted to do,
but I was a good social chairman when I got
when I got called into his office, I just looked
(09:03):
across the desk.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
He wasn't really hitting me hard, he wasn't getting on me.
He was teaching me.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And I thought to myself, sitting there, it was kind
of like the clouds rolled back, the sun shone through
the angel saying, and I said, somebody's got to do
what this guy's doing, you know. And it was at
that point that I decided that I wanted to become
an education major. Uh and my grades went up exponentially
they had to, but that I wanted to be the
(09:31):
dean of students at ole Miss and kind of carved
my career path in that direction.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Before he became the dean, you were a teacher and
a coach in Clarksdale and worked in student activities at
ole Miss and student services, And we're going to dive
into that through the lens of your book. But to
open the lens of your book, you wrote something that
(10:00):
I've reread now probably six times, and it's best in
your words. So would you just mind reading this excerpt
from your book and then let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Well, if I could give a little preamble to this,
which you would that people would always ask me, said,
what is the danas students do? And so you know,
you couldn't tell them you did all these other things,
but so I had this kind of little pad answer,
I'd say, well, every day I work with CEOs, and
(10:34):
I worked with doctors, and I work with lawyers. And
I work with farmers, and I work with military people,
and I worked with criminals, and.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So that's a little precedent to this.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
My first day on the job at Old Miss was
August fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven, the day before Elvis died,
and I retired in twenty fourteen April of twenty fourteen.
That's approximately five hundred days. Those days were a blessing, fulfilling, unpredictable, fun,
and sometimes heartbreaking. It was a long, strange ride. I
(11:10):
endured the tenures of here you go, I'm gonna get
on a roll.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Here.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I endured the tenures of four chancellors, six vice chancellors
of student affairs, nine head football coaches, and four popes.
I witnessed the long shaggy Pike haircut.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Some of y'all going to remember some of this. I
witnessed the long shaggy Pike haircut, the.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Butt cut, the sec frat boy swoop, nineteen eighties, big hair, hiking, boots,
Chaco's and flip flops, the Preppy handbook, planking, spanking, the
Internet gossip site, Juicy Campus, hell Fire and Brimstone, Preacher,
Brother Jim, the KKK, the Skinheads, Animal House, the Hangover,
(11:50):
the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Old Miss pagans, potato guns,
surgical tubing, slingshots, beer funnels, pledges, fishing in the Five Fountain,
flash mobs in the Old Miss student Union, raves in
the library, streakers at football games, home run showers in
right field, looking for the doorknob to the universe, crawling
(12:11):
through the steam tunnels and selecting a mascot. I watched
and prayed as our students marched off to three wars
in Kuwait, Iraq.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I survived the impending doom of Y two K, the
swine flu, killer bees, the ice storm of nineteen ninety four,
the earthquake prediction of nineteen ninety and the remnants of
Hurricane Katrina. I spent many sleepless nights, weekend nights waiting
for parties like Paddy Murphy or Derby Day, or Ivy
League or south Sea Island to come to an end.
(12:41):
I went with UPD to shut down parties at two
am and was on a first name basis with EMT's
law enforcement officers and er nurses and doctors. The coroner
had me on speed dial. Nervous and scared. I watched
his students knelt and prayed in the student union on
September eleventh, two thousand and one. I've received scotch for Christmas.
(13:03):
I've made students pour out their scotch.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Way back when, in a more sensible age, I taught
a student to drink scotch like a gentleman. I brought
in concerts with the likes of Jimmy Buffett, the commodores, B. B.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
King, Willie Nelson.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
And Ram But you might ask, what does the Dean
of students really do? I've been asked this so frequently
that I crafted a clever go to response. I tell
anyone curious enough to ask, well, every day I collaborate
with CEOs, doctors, lawyers, educators, engineers, senators, ministers, and yes.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Even criminals.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I always like to think that I might be working
with the person who would write the next great American novel,
or find.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
A cure for the incurable.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
At a beautiful dinner that friends gave to celebrate my retirement,
I looked around at the people in the room and
thought of the emails and notes that I had received
since announcing my retirement. I realized that my answer was
not so frivolous. As I started to speak, I found
myself looking at a room full of CEOs, doctors, lawyers, bankers, educators, engineers, ministers,
(14:11):
movie directors, farmers, and others. And I feel sure that
criminals would have been.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
There had they been able.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So and now a few messages from our general sponsors.
But first, I hope you'll follow us on your favorite
social media channels, where we share more powerful content, including
(14:38):
reels from our video studio and testimonials from army members.
We're at army of normal folks on every channel. Give
us a follow. We'll be right back. As I read that,
(15:05):
the last line killed me. I just started tying it laughing,
because there's a story there that's all the way to
the very creation of this book. Why write the damn thing?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Anyway?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Well, I loved right, and so when email first came out,
I would have people, some of y'all probably would email
me and say, what's going on up there, you know?
And I would type out, well, we're getting ready for
a football game.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Leaves are changing, it's pretty you know, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And then I kept getting more and more and more,
and people started circulating those things, and so I just
put them all in one body and it was called
from the desk of the Dean, and it ended up
being about two hundred people in this email that I
would send out every Friday. And really what it was
was I was kind of gigging the people because it
said I'm here and you're not, you know, And I
(15:59):
talk about football Fridays, and I talk about snow in
the grove, and I talk about the Square on a
Friday night. And so when social media started, I started
writing just I guess I'm a disappointed columnist.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And I would write essays that I.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Would post on social media and got great responses to those.
And a wonderful woman here in town who has been
my biggest supporter through this, a woman named named Kay Bryant,
had pushed me to write a book, and she kept
saying she would send me messages on Facebook, you need
(16:36):
to write that book. You need to write that book.
And I'd get that from other students. And so at
a party in twenty twenty four at the home of
the mclarty's, who are good friends of mine, I see
sitting there. We were sitting there and Kay pulled Anne
Aberdey aside. Anne was the work at the Center for
(16:58):
the Study of Southern Culture and was very familiar with
the University Press in Mississippi, and so she case said, now, Anne,
we're going to make him write this book, and we're
going to have coffee Wednesday. So we had coffee and
that turned into the next Wednesday, and the next Wednesday
and the next Wednesday, and the book was coming along,
and sadly Anne passed away that summer and the book
(17:24):
was dormant. Fast forward in October of last year a
year ago, former student and good friend Neil White was
doing a book that over in the Delta and he
wanted me to go with him. He knew where he
was going, but he didn't know how to navigate the
history and the weirdness of the Delta, and so.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
He wanted me to go with him.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
And we had a great visit over there, and on
the way back he just said, how's your book coming?
And I told him, I said, well, it's pretty much dead.
And we talked about it and he said, we'll send
me some stuff. And then he got back with me
and said, let's do it. And so Neil White is
just I mean, he's become a better friend than he
(18:11):
was through this process. But a funny story is if
you have not read Sanctuary of Outcast, then you really
need to read Sanctuary of Outcast. It is a wonderful
book about reflection and redemption and it tells about Neil
and his stint and federal prison in Louisiana. And so
(18:33):
we were doing a reading around my dining room table
with two copy editors and Neil and I and I
was reading and so I read that passage and I
got to the point where I said, and the criminals
would have been there if they could have.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And Neil raised his hand and said, I.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Was there, and Neil is Nautilus.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, it's just been an amazing collaboration with Nautilus Press,
and this thing, this sport is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And you're about to do an audio version, right.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
A little nervous about that because a couple of years
ago there was a video that came out some of
you might have seen.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
It went the COVID year.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I wrote a letter to the Old Miss Baseball team
called Dear Old Miss Baseball, and it ended up on YouTube,
had one hundred thousand views. And I read the letter
and Mark McCool, who's very talented videographer put scenes from
Old miss Baseball to it, and it got a lot
of response on on social media. But I was reading
(19:40):
the comments on YouTube and somebody said, who's that reading
Forrest Gump?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And now you're gonna read your whole book.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I've read. I've read my whole book and it sparky.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Stupid is a stupid? Does you wrote that? It's interesting
how behavior of students is something that has been with
us since the beginning of time. That Plato said, of
all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. I
(20:16):
also think Plato was the same person who said the
penalty for not engaging in politics as you end up
being governed by your inferiors. So Plato said some pretty
profound stuff. I think that's why we still know about them.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, so he said, of all the animals, the boy
is the most unmanageable. At the very first class, everybody
at the University of Mississippi, it was apparently pretty unmanageable too,
you write. One professor described them as disorderly and turbulent, idle, uncultivated,
and ungovernable. At the end of the first academic year
(20:59):
of eighty students in the inaugural year of our beloved
University of Mississippi, only forty seven had lasted through the
full term. Five had been expelled, eight had been suspended,
twelve had been allowed to withdraw, and eight had absented
themselves from the university, their whereabouts unknown. As I read that,
(21:20):
I thought about my freshman year at Ole, miss in
eighteen seventy six. In addition to hazing, kangaroo cords, gambling, drinking, cheating,
and disrespectful behavior toward faculty, students were also fond of
pursuing their favorite pastime of tying balls of flaming rags
(21:41):
to the tales of faculties cattle at night and watching
the animals run through the dark. I guess one case.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Students don't get any ideas, ok.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
I just wonder if one I've ever called a forest
on fire. But anyway, I guess one could say that
the bad apples with which I had to deal one
hundred and fifty years later hadn't fallen far from the tree.
I always viewed student discipline matters as both the best
part of my job and the worst part of my job.
Justice might be blind, and while on a college campus,
(22:14):
one might need to be near sighted or far sighted.
I experienced that from you. By the way, Grace, tell
us more about how and why you approached these issues,
sometimes with near sightedness and other times with far sightedness.
(22:37):
Tell us why, as a leader of young men, which
is exactly what you were, that every offense didn't have
a specific reaction and every action the reaction changed depending
on the people involved in the situation, and why you
(22:59):
were so and how you were so creative and your
response to these type of issues. And feel free to
roll with some metaphorical examples of these times.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Well, I think that the one that really means both
to me is we had five students who got caught
for stealing the flag from behind the union and they
were ROTC students, and one of them they had been
to the square because one of them was being deployed
(23:33):
to Afghanistan, and they had gotten drunk and they had
come back to campus and they decided that they were
going to take the flag down and give it to
the one going to Afghanistan. And of course they got
caught on the camera, and the police report came to
my office and I looked at it and I called
the ROTC commander and I said, if this young man
(23:55):
is you know not, wouldn't be suspended, but if he's disciplined,
that's it going to do to his deployment. And he
said it'll probably cost him his commission, and so I
thought about it. So I said, we'll bring the five
five of them into my office and I have the
flag that they stole, and bring another flag.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And so I let them talk.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And we had a process where if a student would
take responsibility for their actions, then it was left up
to us to issue a sanction or whatever. But they
had to say we did this, and so I let
them talk and they talked and they said, we did it.
We were sorry we were doing it because we were
(24:37):
celebrating his leaving and wanted him to have something to
take with him. And so I said okay, and I
had the two flags folded, and I took the new
flag that the commander had brought and I handed it
to the four that were staying here, and I said,
your job until you graduate is to put that flag
(24:57):
up at dawn every day and take it down at
dusk every night. And I'm going to check and know
that you're doing it. And to the one who was
going to Afghanistan. I took the flag that they had stolen,
and I handed it to him and I said, take
this with you, and your job is to bring it
(25:18):
back to me.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
I get kind of like I felt when I did that,
and I looked over the commander and he was wiping
tears from his eyes too. So but you know, I
think he might have learned as much of that from
that had we had put him on probation or suspended
him or whatever. I just felt like that there's discipline,
you know that you can you got to be careful too.
(25:59):
The one part in the book I tell about amnesty
where fraternities have a and guys don't take it. Don't
get any ideas again, but they have this thing where
they will steal composite. Sororities do it too, so don't uh.
They would steal composits and trophies and different things from
different houses, and so we were having a bad problem
(26:20):
with that. So I declared Amnesty Day and the uh
SO that said that if you had something at your
house that had been stolen from another fraternity or sorority,
you could bring it to my office and there wouldn't
be any sanks, no questions, asked, just bring it to
our office and we'll get it back to the right house.
Next day a couple of them brought trophies in and
(26:43):
then I started getting calls from the sorority house directors
and and uh uh, said, Sparky, these boys over here
taking plants off our porch. And you said, you said
it was okay, And in one comment said they just
stole the portrait out of our chapter room. And I said,
(27:05):
where are you going with that? He said, sail down, ladies,
spark he's got it covered on this. And so was
the last amnesaidyay we ever had. We never had another one,
so creativit.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
He didn't always work.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, it doesn't work, but there there was some humor.
We did have a student who was a freshman. He
lived in Huddleston and under his bed he was growing
marijuana plants with the glow light, and you know, and
the police who who discovered it said they were the
(27:38):
most perfect plants that you had ever seen. They were
all perfect color, they were all the same height, and
there must have been at least two hundred of them
under his bed, and they were about this tall. And
so they took him confiscated. He came in. Of course,
that was pretty serious. That was going to cost, that
was intent to distribute. And so uh he came into
(28:01):
our office and he went through a judicial hearing and
I was in there and he was expelled. And so
we were sitting there while they were filling out the
papers and he was crying. He said, mister Sparky, what
am I gonna do now? I got a smart, smart.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Alec streak in me.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And I said, well, you could start a nursery and.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Pretty good at it.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
He was crying. He blew snot bubbles out of his nose.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
It's another part of the job, where leadership and just
being a normal guy doing a big job. There's another
brother job besides discipline, and that's handling trauma, the one
closest to me. And I'm going to try to do
this without breaking up. And I was reminded of it
(29:00):
driving here two hours ago when I passed by the memorial.
I was a freshman when the Coos were hit. That
had to have been certainly as traumatic for our town
and our campus and certainly the Coos and anybody who
(29:22):
was here then when I talk about it, I know
they feel it. I know you feel it. How to
even deal with that as a dean, as someone who's
supposed to lead kids and we were just kids. And
for those listening who don't know, I don't want to
be I don't want to sensatialize it. But there was
(29:45):
a walk and the coyos were raising money on the highway.
A truck with a trailer and some WAT equipment came
over a hill. The highway patrol was not escorting them
for some reason and hit a car and the truck
and the car and the trailer overturned and scattered through
(30:05):
a large group of girls walking down the side of
the road and five paris but many were injured. In
Oxford at that time, it was every ambulance, firetruck and
police probably within a thirty mile radius, on the scene.
And it shut us down and it paralyzed us. And
you were on the front lines.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
About well, I really wasn't on the front lines. I
see my good friend and supervisor, Dean Trot here.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
You about to say, Judy Trotz, Yes, Judy trot Holy smokes, ye,
please stand up, stand up, please, please stand up. Please
you get another round of a bus for everybody listening
(30:59):
that does no. Basically, Bartie handled the Knucklehead Boys and
Judy Trott was the dean for the Lovely Ladies at
Old Miss at the time pretty much, and so I
guess you were partnered on this mess. Well.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
The day it happened, it was just a pristine spring day,
and we had an incredible team at the time, with
Gerald Turner and Tom Merritt and Donfrey, Jay and Robert
Kayat and everybody scattered and went to different places Memphis,
the trauma center, the emergency room, and I got a
(31:38):
call from the Coyo House and nobody was there and
they said, can somebody come over here?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So I went to the Coyo House.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
And I didn't realize at the time what that was
going to mean, because I ended up serving as the
conduit between the administration the university and the chapter.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And the advice. And I tell you, the Kymega advisors.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Were unbelievable in what they did in making that thing happen.
The hardest part was that Gerald Turner called me who
was the chancellor, who was the chancellor, and said, can
you get the girls together? And we want to tell
them that two of the women have passed away. And
(32:20):
I said, well, who do you want to do it?
And he said you And so that's probably the hardest
thing I've ever had to do.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I think.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I write in the book that we had called the
campus ministers over and my good friend Duncan Gray came
over and before I did it, I asked him to
offer a prayer. And I said in the book that
while he was talking to God, I had him on
a different line, asking him to help me to what
I was going to say. But the university's response to
that was pretty amazing. And there was a group from
(32:52):
d C, a federal funded program and National Organization of
Victims Assistance came in and they shepherded us through that process.
But there were no right answers, there were no wrong answers.
You just took care of what was in front of you,
and it just something kicked in And till this day
(33:14):
I talked to women who I got to know through that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
How do you you have to be there for the
people you're serving, You have to lead them through this
trauma and this pain. But you're only a human being.
I mean as a dean, you're the dean, and everybody
that's the dean. This is the person in charge, this
is our leader, this is whatever. But when all of
it's over, you haven't had a chance to mourn, you
(33:40):
haven't had a chance to decompress. You haven't had a
chance to self care. How does that work?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
We did some debriefing as a staff and working with
Universal Counselors for ourselves. The National Organization Victims Assistants pulled
me aside and said, you're going to hit the wall
when it's all over that You're adrenaline is going to
keep pumping and there's going to be nothing to do,
and that'll drive you crazy. You know, where you wanting
(34:10):
to do something, You're pumped up and there's nothing to do.
And so it really did hit me hard. Almost eight
months later, we lost a student that I was very
close with and ended up giving the homily at his
memorial service in Florida.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
And I'd learned from the CAO incident how to handle it.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
So when I got back from Florida that night, I
got me, turned out the lights, put on a Jimmy
Buffett album and laid on the floor with two Hannickins
and cried.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Everybody handles it differently. There's no right way or wrong way.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I think you just do what your heart tells you.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Sparky Reared,
and trust me, it gets better. You don't want to
miss Part two. It's now available to listen to. Together, guys,
we can change this country and it starts with you.
I'll see in part too,
If I could teach college students anything, I would teach
them to be empathetic, to try to understand other people,
to understand where they are. I look at these guys
over here and think they're freshmen and what they're going through,
and they're bringing with them their pain from home. They're
bringing with them their joy, they're bringing them with their successes,
(00:24):
their worries, and when I would deal with them, I'd
always try to understand what's going through this guy's head
or what's going through this woman's head in terms of.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Where are they.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
If we had a class in teaching people how to empathize,
I think we'd be a whole lot better office in society.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I think amen.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Normal folks needed to learn how to do that.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,
and I'm a football coach at Inner City Memphis. And
the last part a few years ago led to an
oscar for the film about a team I coached. It's
called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be
(01:09):
solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits
using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox,
but rather by an army of normal folks. That army
is us just you and me deciding, Hey, you know
what I can help. That is exactly what Sparky Reared
(01:29):
has done his whole life. He's the voice you just heard.
Sparky is a living icon in the Ole miss community,
and he's one of my mentors. He worked in student
affairs for thirty six years, including the last fourteen of
them as the Dean of Students. He's truly a normal
guy who's faced personal and professional challenges, mentored thousands, and
(01:53):
his leadership lessons can benefit the entire army. I genuinely
cannot wait for you to meet my friend and mentor Sparky.
Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, Sparky
(02:20):
Reardon in Oxford, Mississippi. I can't believe him hanging out
with you today.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm surprised too.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Everybody, Welcome to an army of normal folks. We are
live as you can hear with an audience about three
hundred people in Oxford, Mississippi. Today's guest is Sparky Reardon.
Don't really know how to introduce Sparky properly because I
want to say he's my friend, but I almost have
(02:49):
too much reverence for him to call him my friend.
He's been a mentor, he's been a confidant, he's been
an inspiration, and he is my friend. And Sparky worked
in student affairs for thirty six years at my alma
moter Ole Miss, where we are today on campus. In
the last fourteen years of those thirty six years, he
(03:11):
was the Dean of students here, and I count myself
among the lucky ones that spent all of my years
at Old Miss under the tutelage of Sparky. Sparky is
the author of a new book, The Dean Memoirs and Missives,
which is available at Square Books in Oxford for those
(03:32):
of you that are here, but for those listening across
the country, Amazon dot Com and bookstores throughout the Southeast region.
I always say I'm so glad to be with you
to all of my guests, but tonight I really mean it.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'm glad to be here too, and thank you for
having me. I'me to the Ole Miss Women's Council for
making this possible.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, absolutely, I have a quick question for you. But
I got to tell you something that I've never told
you before. I asked the first question that I want
to tell you.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Oh he.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And I thought about this really on the way down here.
I first became aware of you at freshman orientation, which
was in the chapel at that time, when you stood
up in front of everybody with a green jacket on
and said, no, I'm not the Grove, and I thought, well,
that's kind of funny. And he was the Dida students,
(04:31):
and so you know, as a freshman, you spend most
of your time trying to avoid any interaction with the
Dana students because you assume that just means you're in trouble.
So I did things to avoid you. And then as
a sophomore and junior, I became a little more aware
(04:52):
of you. And then as a junior I really became
indebted to you by some things you said to me
after I wrote a column, and then also when I
had this crazy idea to start this thing called the
Charity Ball. And then my senior year I took your
leadership class and grew from you and the weird transformation
(05:19):
that took place over those four year Sparky is I
didn't do things against the rules at first because I
just didn't want to get in trouble and I was
scared of you. By the time I left college, I
wanted to do things right because I didn't want to
disappoint you. Man. I cannot think of a more poignant
(05:48):
example and illustration of what true leadership is when you
convince somebody just through your actions that you are worthy
of not being disappointed. Sparky, you had such an effect
on my life and so many others. And I don't
presume to be the most affected person by you, because
(06:10):
my gosh, there are thousands. But I just want you
to know, on a very personal level, I still to
this day don't want to disappoint you.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I appreciate that, Bill, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I appreciate your praise, and I just don't feel worthy
of it. I just came to work and did what
I did, and I don't deserve all this. I got
paid for what I did. I had a great life
and I loved every second of it, and I put
it in the book, and that's why I ended up
here tonight.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I guess because of the.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Book, maybe, but without the book, without the book, I'd
still want to do this with you, So here we go.
You write in your introduction of the book, I think
it was Mark Twain who said the two most important
days in your life or the day you were born
and the day you figure out why. Tell us some
(07:02):
day up the day you figure out why you were born.
I think it was the day I retired.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Really yeah, that when I look back on everything that
was given to me, the people who supported me, the
opportunities that I was given, I realized how blessed I was.
And I guess my wife a lot of it has
to do with my faith and that I feel like
that we have an obligation to lead, to chastise, to rebuke,
(07:32):
and I did some of that, but to also serve.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And I like to think that some of what I
did was service.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You tell a story about when it clicked that you thought, hey,
I might want to be a dentist students, it was
actually when you were in trouble or something.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I think, well, I was a social chairman of my fraternity.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
That's already a ticket to trouble.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
And Lester Williams to tell you I was real damn
good too.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Good in fact, that Tom Hines called me to his office,
who was the director of student activities at the time.
It was it could have been a curfew violation, a
noise violation, a fight, or could have been that there
was some alcohol involved.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I'm not sure, but.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I had I was a pre law major and I
had no interest in being a lawyer. Everybody in Clarksdale
had told me I was involved in debate, I was
involved in student leadership, did stuff with the church, and
everybody said, well, you need to go to law school
at Old Miss, you need to go to law school
at Ole Miss. And that came from some men that
(08:42):
I greatly admired. So I came to law school at
ole Miss and had about a two point twenty four
by freshman year and didn't supersede that the second semester.
So I had no idea what I wanted to do,
but I was a good social chairman when I got
when I got called into his office, I just looked
(09:03):
across the desk.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
He wasn't really hitting me hard, he wasn't getting on me.
He was teaching me.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And I thought to myself, sitting there, it was kind
of like the clouds rolled back, the sun shone through
the angel saying, and I said, somebody's got to do
what this guy's doing, you know. And it was at
that point that I decided that I wanted to become
an education major. Uh and my grades went up exponentially
they had to, but that I wanted to be the
(09:31):
dean of students at ole Miss and kind of carved
my career path in that direction.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Before he became the dean, you were a teacher and
a coach in Clarksdale and worked in student activities at
ole Miss and student services, And we're going to dive
into that through the lens of your book. But to
open the lens of your book, you wrote something that
(10:00):
I've reread now probably six times, and it's best in
your words. So would you just mind reading this excerpt
from your book and then let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Well, if I could give a little preamble to this,
which you would that people would always ask me, said,
what is the danas students do? And so you know,
you couldn't tell them you did all these other things,
but so I had this kind of little pad answer,
I'd say, well, every day I work with CEOs, and
(10:34):
I worked with doctors, and I work with lawyers. And
I work with farmers, and I work with military people,
and I worked with criminals, and.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So that's a little precedent to this.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
My first day on the job at Old Miss was
August fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven, the day before Elvis died,
and I retired in twenty fourteen April of twenty fourteen.
That's approximately five hundred days. Those days were a blessing, fulfilling, unpredictable, fun,
and sometimes heartbreaking. It was a long, strange ride. I
(11:10):
endured the tenures of here you go, I'm gonna get
on a roll.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Here.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I endured the tenures of four chancellors, six vice chancellors
of student affairs, nine head football coaches, and four popes.
I witnessed the long shaggy Pike haircut.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Some of y'all going to remember some of this. I
witnessed the long shaggy Pike haircut, the.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Butt cut, the sec frat boy swoop, nineteen eighties, big hair, hiking, boots,
Chaco's and flip flops, the Preppy handbook, planking, spanking, the
Internet gossip site, Juicy Campus, hell Fire and Brimstone, Preacher,
Brother Jim, the KKK, the Skinheads, Animal House, the Hangover,
(11:50):
the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Old Miss pagans, potato guns,
surgical tubing, slingshots, beer funnels, pledges, fishing in the Five Fountain,
flash mobs in the Old Miss student Union, raves in
the library, streakers at football games, home run showers in
right field, looking for the doorknob to the universe, crawling
(12:11):
through the steam tunnels and selecting a mascot. I watched
and prayed as our students marched off to three wars
in Kuwait, Iraq.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I survived the impending doom of Y two K, the
swine flu, killer bees, the ice storm of nineteen ninety four,
the earthquake prediction of nineteen ninety and the remnants of
Hurricane Katrina. I spent many sleepless nights, weekend nights waiting
for parties like Paddy Murphy or Derby Day, or Ivy
League or south Sea Island to come to an end.
(12:41):
I went with UPD to shut down parties at two
am and was on a first name basis with EMT's
law enforcement officers and er nurses and doctors. The coroner
had me on speed dial. Nervous and scared. I watched
his students knelt and prayed in the student union on
September eleventh, two thousand and one. I've received scotch for Christmas.
(13:03):
I've made students pour out their scotch.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
And.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Way back when, in a more sensible age, I taught
a student to drink scotch like a gentleman. I brought
in concerts with the likes of Jimmy Buffett, the commodores, B. B.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
King, Willie Nelson.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
And Ram But you might ask, what does the Dean
of students really do? I've been asked this so frequently
that I crafted a clever go to response. I tell
anyone curious enough to ask, well, every day I collaborate
with CEOs, doctors, lawyers, educators, engineers, senators, ministers, and yes.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Even criminals.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I always like to think that I might be working
with the person who would write the next great American novel,
or find.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
A cure for the incurable.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
At a beautiful dinner that friends gave to celebrate my retirement,
I looked around at the people in the room and
thought of the emails and notes that I had received
since announcing my retirement. I realized that my answer was
not so frivolous. As I started to speak, I found
myself looking at a room full of CEOs, doctors, lawyers, bankers, educators, engineers, ministers,
(14:11):
movie directors, farmers, and others. And I feel sure that
criminals would have been.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
There had they been able.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So and now a few messages from our general sponsors.
But first, I hope you'll follow us on your favorite
social media channels, where we share more powerful content, including
(14:38):
reels from our video studio and testimonials from army members.
We're at army of normal folks on every channel. Give
us a follow. We'll be right back. As I read that,
(15:05):
the last line killed me. I just started tying it laughing,
because there's a story there that's all the way to
the very creation of this book. Why write the damn thing?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Anyway?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Well, I loved right, and so when email first came out,
I would have people, some of y'all probably would email
me and say, what's going on up there, you know?
And I would type out, well, we're getting ready for
a football game.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Leaves are changing, it's pretty you know, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And then I kept getting more and more and more,
and people started circulating those things, and so I just
put them all in one body and it was called
from the desk of the Dean, and it ended up
being about two hundred people in this email that I
would send out every Friday. And really what it was
was I was kind of gigging the people because it
said I'm here and you're not, you know, And I
(15:59):
talk about football Fridays, and I talk about snow in
the grove, and I talk about the Square on a
Friday night. And so when social media started, I started
writing just I guess I'm a disappointed columnist.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And I would write essays that I.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Would post on social media and got great responses to those.
And a wonderful woman here in town who has been
my biggest supporter through this, a woman named named Kay Bryant,
had pushed me to write a book, and she kept
saying she would send me messages on Facebook, you need
(16:36):
to write that book. You need to write that book.
And I'd get that from other students. And so at
a party in twenty twenty four at the home of
the mclarty's, who are good friends of mine, I see
sitting there. We were sitting there and Kay pulled Anne
Aberdey aside. Anne was the work at the Center for
(16:58):
the Study of Southern Culture and was very familiar with
the University Press in Mississippi, and so she case said, now, Anne,
we're going to make him write this book, and we're
going to have coffee Wednesday. So we had coffee and
that turned into the next Wednesday, and the next Wednesday
and the next Wednesday, and the book was coming along,
and sadly Anne passed away that summer and the book
(17:24):
was dormant. Fast forward in October of last year a
year ago, former student and good friend Neil White was
doing a book that over in the Delta and he
wanted me to go with him. He knew where he
was going, but he didn't know how to navigate the
history and the weirdness of the Delta, and so.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
He wanted me to go with him.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
And we had a great visit over there, and on
the way back he just said, how's your book coming?
And I told him, I said, well, it's pretty much dead.
And we talked about it and he said, we'll send
me some stuff. And then he got back with me
and said, let's do it. And so Neil White is
just I mean, he's become a better friend than he
(18:11):
was through this process. But a funny story is if
you have not read Sanctuary of Outcast, then you really
need to read Sanctuary of Outcast. It is a wonderful
book about reflection and redemption and it tells about Neil
and his stint and federal prison in Louisiana. And so
(18:33):
we were doing a reading around my dining room table
with two copy editors and Neil and I and I
was reading and so I read that passage and I
got to the point where I said, and the criminals
would have been there if they could have.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And Neil raised his hand and said, I.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Was there, and Neil is Nautilus.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, it's just been an amazing collaboration with Nautilus Press,
and this thing, this sport is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And you're about to do an audio version, right.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
A little nervous about that because a couple of years
ago there was a video that came out some of
you might have seen.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
It went the COVID year.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I wrote a letter to the Old Miss Baseball team
called Dear Old Miss Baseball, and it ended up on YouTube,
had one hundred thousand views. And I read the letter
and Mark McCool, who's very talented videographer put scenes from
Old miss Baseball to it, and it got a lot
of response on on social media. But I was reading
(19:40):
the comments on YouTube and somebody said, who's that reading
Forrest Gump?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And now you're gonna read your whole book.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I've read. I've read my whole book and it sparky.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Stupid is a stupid? Does you wrote that? It's interesting
how behavior of students is something that has been with
us since the beginning of time. That Plato said, of
all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. I
(20:16):
also think Plato was the same person who said the
penalty for not engaging in politics as you end up
being governed by your inferiors. So Plato said some pretty
profound stuff. I think that's why we still know about them.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, so he said, of all the animals, the boy
is the most unmanageable. At the very first class, everybody
at the University of Mississippi, it was apparently pretty unmanageable too,
you write. One professor described them as disorderly and turbulent, idle, uncultivated,
and ungovernable. At the end of the first academic year
(20:59):
of eighty students in the inaugural year of our beloved
University of Mississippi, only forty seven had lasted through the
full term. Five had been expelled, eight had been suspended,
twelve had been allowed to withdraw, and eight had absented
themselves from the university, their whereabouts unknown. As I read that,
(21:20):
I thought about my freshman year at Ole, miss in
eighteen seventy six. In addition to hazing, kangaroo cords, gambling, drinking, cheating,
and disrespectful behavior toward faculty, students were also fond of
pursuing their favorite pastime of tying balls of flaming rags
(21:41):
to the tales of faculties cattle at night and watching
the animals run through the dark. I guess one case.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Students don't get any ideas, ok.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
I just wonder if one I've ever called a forest
on fire. But anyway, I guess one could say that
the bad apples with which I had to deal one
hundred and fifty years later hadn't fallen far from the tree.
I always viewed student discipline matters as both the best
part of my job and the worst part of my job.
Justice might be blind, and while on a college campus,
(22:14):
one might need to be near sighted or far sighted.
I experienced that from you. By the way, Grace, tell
us more about how and why you approached these issues,
sometimes with near sightedness and other times with far sightedness.
(22:37):
Tell us why, as a leader of young men, which
is exactly what you were, that every offense didn't have
a specific reaction and every action the reaction changed depending
on the people involved in the situation, and why you
(22:59):
were so and how you were so creative and your
response to these type of issues. And feel free to
roll with some metaphorical examples of these times.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Well, I think that the one that really means both
to me is we had five students who got caught
for stealing the flag from behind the union and they
were ROTC students, and one of them they had been
to the square because one of them was being deployed
(23:33):
to Afghanistan, and they had gotten drunk and they had
come back to campus and they decided that they were
going to take the flag down and give it to
the one going to Afghanistan. And of course they got
caught on the camera, and the police report came to
my office and I looked at it and I called
the ROTC commander and I said, if this young man
(23:55):
is you know not, wouldn't be suspended, but if he's disciplined,
that's it going to do to his deployment. And he
said it'll probably cost him his commission, and so I
thought about it. So I said, we'll bring the five
five of them into my office and I have the
flag that they stole, and bring another flag.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And so I let them talk.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And we had a process where if a student would
take responsibility for their actions, then it was left up
to us to issue a sanction or whatever. But they
had to say we did this, and so I let
them talk and they talked and they said, we did it.
We were sorry we were doing it because we were
(24:37):
celebrating his leaving and wanted him to have something to
take with him. And so I said okay, and I
had the two flags folded, and I took the new
flag that the commander had brought and I handed it
to the four that were staying here, and I said,
your job until you graduate is to put that flag
(24:57):
up at dawn every day and take it down at
dusk every night. And I'm going to check and know
that you're doing it. And to the one who was
going to Afghanistan. I took the flag that they had stolen,
and I handed it to him and I said, take
this with you, and your job is to bring it
(25:18):
back to me.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
I get kind of like I felt when I did that,
and I looked over the commander and he was wiping
tears from his eyes too. So but you know, I
think he might have learned as much of that from
that had we had put him on probation or suspended
him or whatever. I just felt like that there's discipline,
you know that you can you got to be careful too.
(25:59):
The one part in the book I tell about amnesty
where fraternities have a and guys don't take it. Don't
get any ideas again, but they have this thing where
they will steal composite. Sororities do it too, so don't uh.
They would steal composits and trophies and different things from
different houses, and so we were having a bad problem
(26:20):
with that. So I declared Amnesty Day and the uh
SO that said that if you had something at your
house that had been stolen from another fraternity or sorority,
you could bring it to my office and there wouldn't
be any sanks, no questions, asked, just bring it to
our office and we'll get it back to the right house.
Next day a couple of them brought trophies in and
(26:43):
then I started getting calls from the sorority house directors
and and uh uh, said, Sparky, these boys over here
taking plants off our porch. And you said, you said
it was okay, And in one comment said they just
stole the portrait out of our chapter room. And I said,
(27:05):
where are you going with that? He said, sail down, ladies,
spark he's got it covered on this. And so was
the last amnesaidyay we ever had. We never had another one,
so creativit.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
He didn't always work.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, it doesn't work, but there there was some humor.
We did have a student who was a freshman. He
lived in Huddleston and under his bed he was growing
marijuana plants with the glow light, and you know, and
the police who who discovered it said they were the
(27:38):
most perfect plants that you had ever seen. They were
all perfect color, they were all the same height, and
there must have been at least two hundred of them
under his bed, and they were about this tall. And
so they took him confiscated. He came in. Of course,
that was pretty serious. That was going to cost, that
was intent to distribute. And so uh he came into
(28:01):
our office and he went through a judicial hearing and
I was in there and he was expelled. And so
we were sitting there while they were filling out the
papers and he was crying. He said, mister Sparky, what
am I gonna do now? I got a smart, smart.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Alec streak in me.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And I said, well, you could start a nursery and.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Pretty good at it.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
He was crying. He blew snot bubbles out of his nose.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
It's another part of the job, where leadership and just
being a normal guy doing a big job. There's another
brother job besides discipline, and that's handling trauma, the one
closest to me. And I'm going to try to do
this without breaking up. And I was reminded of it
(29:00):
driving here two hours ago when I passed by the memorial.
I was a freshman when the Coos were hit. That
had to have been certainly as traumatic for our town
and our campus and certainly the Coos and anybody who
(29:22):
was here then when I talk about it, I know
they feel it. I know you feel it. How to
even deal with that as a dean, as someone who's
supposed to lead kids and we were just kids. And
for those listening who don't know, I don't want to
be I don't want to sensatialize it. But there was
(29:45):
a walk and the coyos were raising money on the highway.
A truck with a trailer and some WAT equipment came
over a hill. The highway patrol was not escorting them
for some reason and hit a car and the truck
and the car and the trailer overturned and scattered through
(30:05):
a large group of girls walking down the side of
the road and five paris but many were injured. In
Oxford at that time, it was every ambulance, firetruck and
police probably within a thirty mile radius, on the scene.
And it shut us down and it paralyzed us. And
you were on the front lines.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
About well, I really wasn't on the front lines. I
see my good friend and supervisor, Dean Trot here.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
You about to say, Judy Trotz, Yes, Judy trot Holy smokes, ye,
please stand up, stand up, please, please stand up. Please
you get another round of a bus for everybody listening
(30:59):
that does no. Basically, Bartie handled the Knucklehead Boys and
Judy Trott was the dean for the Lovely Ladies at
Old Miss at the time pretty much, and so I
guess you were partnered on this mess. Well.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
The day it happened, it was just a pristine spring day,
and we had an incredible team at the time, with
Gerald Turner and Tom Merritt and Donfrey, Jay and Robert
Kayat and everybody scattered and went to different places Memphis,
the trauma center, the emergency room, and I got a
(31:38):
call from the Coyo House and nobody was there and
they said, can somebody come over here?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So I went to the Coyo House.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
And I didn't realize at the time what that was
going to mean, because I ended up serving as the
conduit between the administration the university and the chapter.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And the advice. And I tell you, the Kymega advisors.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Were unbelievable in what they did in making that thing happen.
The hardest part was that Gerald Turner called me who
was the chancellor, who was the chancellor, and said, can
you get the girls together? And we want to tell
them that two of the women have passed away. And
(32:20):
I said, well, who do you want to do it?
And he said you And so that's probably the hardest
thing I've ever had to do.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I think.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I write in the book that we had called the
campus ministers over and my good friend Duncan Gray came
over and before I did it, I asked him to
offer a prayer. And I said in the book that
while he was talking to God, I had him on
a different line, asking him to help me to what
I was going to say. But the university's response to
that was pretty amazing. And there was a group from
(32:52):
d C, a federal funded program and National Organization of
Victims Assistance came in and they shepherded us through that process.
But there were no right answers, there were no wrong answers.
You just took care of what was in front of you,
and it just something kicked in And till this day
(33:14):
I talked to women who I got to know through that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
How do you you have to be there for the
people you're serving, You have to lead them through this
trauma and this pain. But you're only a human being.
I mean as a dean, you're the dean, and everybody
that's the dean. This is the person in charge, this
is our leader, this is whatever. But when all of
it's over, you haven't had a chance to mourn, you
(33:40):
haven't had a chance to decompress. You haven't had a
chance to self care. How does that work?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
We did some debriefing as a staff and working with
Universal Counselors for ourselves. The National Organization Victims Assistants pulled
me aside and said, you're going to hit the wall
when it's all over that You're adrenaline is going to
keep pumping and there's going to be nothing to do,
and that'll drive you crazy. You know, where you wanting
(34:10):
to do something, You're pumped up and there's nothing to do.
And so it really did hit me hard. Almost eight
months later, we lost a student that I was very
close with and ended up giving the homily at his
memorial service in Florida.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
And I'd learned from the CAO incident how to handle it.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
So when I got back from Florida that night, I
got me, turned out the lights, put on a Jimmy
Buffett album and laid on the floor with two Hannickins
and cried.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Everybody handles it differently. There's no right way or wrong way.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I think you just do what your heart tells you.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Sparky Reared,
and trust me, it gets better. You don't want to
miss Part two. It's now available to listen to. Together, guys,
we can change this country and it starts with you.
I'll see in part too,
Host
Bill Courtney
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