Wright Thompson, GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI, ESPN MAGAZINE online

I draw your attention to Wright Thompson's strong reporting and writing in this ESPN Magazine.

Here is an excerpt of what I wrote to Wright, who received his undergraduate degree from the Missouri School of Journalism, who is married to another Mizzou journalism grad, Sonia Weinberg--Steve Weinberg's and Scherrie Goettsch's daughter.

I wrote to him:
Once I began reading, I knew I wanted to slowly read every word, and think about what you were saying, think about the 1962 Rebels football team and their intersection with history. Most of the 1962 games, (I can't recall if I went to the Mississippi State game), I heard in their entirety on the radio.

I read your story instead of writing a book chapter. But, in fact, I believe it will help me to now return to write that chapter, about magazines in America in 1880-1920 period.

The SATURDAY EVENING POST in November 1898, according to Frank Luther Mott, described football this way, before there was Buck Randall of Ole Miss:

"The capacity to take hard knocks which belongs to a successful football player is usually associated with the qualities that would enable a man to lead a charge up San Juan Hill or guide the Merrimac into Santiago Harbor."

There are many fine things about the 1962 story, including your own struggle with your family, the history of your state, our state. One of my brothers was in Meredith's biology class and lived a dorm or two away from Baxter Hall.

These days as part of my work, I deal with brutal photographs of racial violence in the 1930s in my hometown of Columbus. And at the same time I deal with images that are so sublime, pictures of black people and white people living their lives in the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s, in the era of "the little grocery stores and the guy pushing burgers off a griddle."

Great reporting. Great writing. You wove into this story so many specific, telling details that can resonate with people who know nothing about Mississippi and people who know a great deal about Mississippi.

I especially like how your handled the whispered phrase with the wives out of earshot: "The blacks..."

I will share your article with my Advanced Writing students at Mizzou.

Thanks for your care and insight, made manifest in journalistic writing.