How a Losing Football Team Brought a Family Together

On this episode of Our American Stories, Nancy Ball shares a story she wrote titled “Being an Ole Miss Fan Is, in and of Itself, a Lesson in Humility.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
And we return to our American stories. And up next
we have a listeners story from Nancy Ball. Nancy lives
in Birmingham, Alabama, but grew up in the heart of
the Mississippi Delta. Today, Nancy reflects on her childhood with
a short story she wrote called being an All miss
fan is in and of itself, a lesson in humility.

(00:41):
And for anyone who's been a fan of a perennial
losing dean, whether you were a Chicago Cubs fan or
you are a New York Giants football fan, you know
what I'm talking about. Here's Nancy to share her story.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I grew up in the town of Inverness, Mississippi. The
town of Inverness has a population of approximately one thousand
people that bypass put in around the town some thirty
years ago negated the need for the town's one red light.
It is a farming community and is surrounded by fields
of various crops such as cotton, corn, and soybeans, as
well as catfish ponds. I never gave much thought about

(01:19):
the childhoods of other people until I went away to
a college located in a big metropolitan city. It was
then that I realized that not everyone had a similar
childhood as mine. Of course, that is not to say
that a childhood spent in a small town versus a
large city is superior. I had just never given the
difference as much. Thought childhood spent in a small town

(01:40):
was all I knew. Additionally, most people who I encountered
during my childhood had also grown up in similar environments.
I was under an impression that all childhoods consisted of
small towns where everyone knew each other's names and their
family histories going back for several generations. I thought everyone
else's small grocery store allowed it's eight year old customers

(02:01):
to charge their purchases to their family's account with a
simple signature. I thought everyone else had a family reunion
party on Christmas Eve, which had any attendance over eighty
of their most beloved family members. I thought everyone else
had worked in cotton fields and driven attractor. It wasn't
until I moved to a big city that I realized
how seemingly unique my childhood had been amongst my peers.

(02:24):
This was also confirmed by the fact that oftentimes, when
I would tell a story of my childhood or about
life in general back home, the listener's eyes would grow large,
and at the end of the story, they would respond
with a simple wow or better yet, that is a
new one in me that in turn gave me reasons
to cherish my childhood all the more. For my day job,

(02:46):
I am an estate planning attorney, which means I regularly
advise clients going through personal crisises. Often hear how they
wouldn't wish their current situation on anyone because it is
beyond awful. One particular situation clients often struggle with his
family estrangement. I recently read a book seeking to find
out more about family estrangement. As a book provided research

(03:07):
on the reasons why such an event may occur. I
was surprised to discover that the author's research suggests that
perhaps twenty five percent of all families in the United States,
if not more, have an estrangement within their family. A
few years ago, I drove the four hour trip to
see my beloved grandfather as his health was failing him.
As we were talking, my grandfather brought up the subject

(03:29):
of my career and all of the family struggles I
had encounter. He then drew in a deep breath and
paused as he looked out into his yard for a while.
He then turned back to me, as he said, in
a matter of fact tone, well, there is nothing you
can do to make me quit loving you. Shortly thereafter
my grandfather died, I started to reflect on the values

(03:52):
that my grandfather and others had passed on to me,
which I now wish to instill in my children. The result,
to my great surprise, was that I could not quit writing.
I have written fifty stories about my family and growing
up in rural Mississippi, which hopefully provides some core life
lessons I can pass on to my children. I could
probably write two hundred more stories. After I had written

(04:14):
a good bit of these stories, I begin to wonder
if there was any sort of magic to living in
a small town that can't be found in a big city. I,
like most parents, want my children to be smart, well loved,
and well rounded. But more than anything, I want them
to be good people. Want them to be kind to
each other and to others they encounter. In many ways,

(04:35):
they will have a completely different environment for their childhood
than I had. One way I can install these small
town life lessons in them is to tell them the
stories of my childhood today, I am going to share
one of those stories with you. I am a third
generation ole Miss student. My dad attended graduate school at
Old Miss. My grandfather was an undergraduate student in Old Miss.

(04:57):
I grew up going to Old Miss for football games
and other events. For most of my life, I grew
up hearing about the ole Miss football great Archie Manning
and his wife, the homecoming Queen Olivia Manning. Ironically, Archie
grew up in the same rule Mississippi County as I did.
Also heard about the glory days of Coach Fault, who
was the last coach to leave ole Miss to win

(05:18):
a football national championship, which occurred in the year nineteen
sixty two. He had also led the football team to
win the Southeastern Conference championship for six years during this time,
reign ole Miss is not won either of these titles
since coach Fault he retired in the year nineteen seventy.
During my childhood, I saw the hurt looks on the

(05:39):
faces of my father and grandfather when Peyton Manning, the
son of Archie and Olivia Manning, decided to attend a
school other than ole Miss. Also saw their looks of
pure joy when their younger son, Eli Manning, decided to
attend ole Miss. I have seen ole Miss football through
some pretty dismal seasons. I recall one game in which
the opposing team's quarterback took a knee during every down

(06:00):
of the third quarter. You heard this correctly, This happened
in the third quarter. For those of you who are
not football fans, this is not good. In fact, it
is correctically unheard of, as it is an outright recognition
by one team that they are not evenly matched with
their opponent. The quarterback was trying to prevent his team
from scoring any more points, as the game was already

(06:21):
a blood bath, with the quarterbacks team being up on
Old Miss by almost fifty points. My father never let
us leave a football game before it was over, as
he said that was not who we were. He would
usually say, in response to requests to leave a game early,
something along the lines of, we need to support the
team no matter what happens, we need to respect their effort. However,

(06:42):
my father made an exception to his policy for that
particular game, and we left early. In November two thousand
and three, Ole Miss was having one of those rare
football seasons where they were winning a good bit due
in large part to the play of Eli Manning. Anyone
associated with Old Mess football could just sense that something

(07:04):
different was going to happen that year. We seemed to
be destined for something better than finishing at our usual
bottom or middle if we were lucky of the SEC
Football conference. So the weekend came for the annual Ole
Mess Versuela she Football rivalry matchup game right before Thanksgiving.
The winner of that game was secure the title of

(07:25):
the top team of the SEC West and go on
to play in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta. The
scalp ticket prices for the game were at record levels.
Before the game, I mentioned to my dad that he
should consider selling our season tickets to make a nice profit.
He was downright offended at this suggestion. In his mind,
that might as well have been treason. My dad insisted

(07:46):
that we would both attend the game, as we had
earned the right to attend this game after sitting through
so many losing games. He was also sure that we
were going to see history in the making. So there
we were sitting in our reg well loved seats and
upper level section see of the stadium. Towards the end
of regulation play with ole Miss down seventeen fourteen, Eli

(08:09):
Manning and ole Miss were in position to make a
game winning drive. The energy in the stadium was palpable.
At this point. My dad did one of the most
amazing things I've ever seen him do. He pulled out
of his pants pocket a picture button pen, and without
saying a word, proceeded to attach it to his shirt.
As I leaned in to further inspect the pen, I

(08:29):
fully expected there to be a picture of Eli Manning
on it, similar to the other buttons I had seen
that day being worn by so many of the other
ole Miss fans. To my great sprice, it was not
a picture of Eli Manning, but rather it was a
picture of Archie Many, which my father, who can't seem
to ever keep up with his reading glasses, had kept
from his childhood. The pen had not seen the light

(08:52):
of day in thirty plus years. I looked at the
pen and then looked at my dad in shock as
a smile broke across space as he said ABB been
saving this pen for the perfect occasion. I didn't know
whether to cry or cheer in that moment, so I
did a little bit of both. Ole Miss did not
win the game that day, and Eli Manning went on

(09:13):
to play in the NFL. My dad often jokes that
we may have to wait until another Manning intends Ole
Miss in order to have a chance of playing in
any championship games. While my dad says this in a
joking manner, I know that he is not entirely joking.
He closely follows the bursts of the members of the
next generation of the Manning family, knows each of their
gingers and ages, and follows any press materials about their

(09:35):
athletic abilities, knowing my father that Archie Manning pen has
gone back into his stressor for another special occasion. That
occasion may not come during my father's lifetime or even
during my lifetime. It may not come until my young
son as an adult. When it does, my son will
have that pen and he will be ready.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
And a great job as always by Madison on the
production and the storytelling on that piece, and a special
thanks to Nancy Ball for sharing her story about her
father's tradition and now her tradition of rooting for ole
Miss football and doing it together. What a story she
had to tell. Hopefully we're inspiring people to do the same,

(10:15):
to be the resident historian, the keeper of the legacy
of the family. If our show could do anything, it's
not just to inspire people to know the stories of
this great country, but to know the stories of their
communities and their families. Nancy Ball's story. She grew up
in a town of one thousand, where cotton, corn, soybeans,
and catfish were what were farmed. But so much more

(10:36):
was raised in that small town, in small towns across
this country. Her story here on our American Stories