Marshall Ramsey

I wrote this for the current Sprayberry Football coach.  He asked how playing football impacted my life. I left out the part how my messed-up shoulder can forecast the rain. The rest is accurate:

It’s funny how the smell of freshly cut Bermuda grass can trigger memories — Memories of those hot, humid, miserable two-a-day practices.  Back in the summer of 1985 during two-a-days, we thought we were just playing a game.  Little did we know, we were learning about life.

Not that you could have told us.  We were teenagers.  And as four out of five parents will agree, teenagers aren’t known for their listening abilities.

But we ran onto the practice field that summer as a group of individuals. And we walked off the field that fall as a team.  Somewhere in between, we became men.

After a recent trip past Sprayberry High School, I began to think about all the things we learned that season and how I use them today in my life. Here are a few:

1. How to win (and lose) as a team.
2. How to depend on the person next to you.
3. How to make mistakes and learn from them (sometimes by running bleachers).
4. How to believe.
5. How to set goals. And achieve them.
6. How to live a principled, disciplined life.
7. How to plow through adversity.  And how to celebrate and savor victory.

We were blessed back them to have good teachers.  Coach John Paty was a good man who believed in us. We were his kids. Sprayberry Football was our family.

It has been over 25 years now. We’re grayer. A little thicker around the middle. Even a little balder.  Many of us have led extremely successful lives.  And I think the majority of us would agree that the skills we developed on that freshly cut Bermuda practice field translated into the real world.

Sprayberry Football makes a difference. It makes a community. It makes men.

Good morning!  What’s up?  Hope you get a little rain.

I pulled into the parking lot of the Malouf Furniture Showroom near the banks of the Yazoo River and didn’t know what to expect.  I looked over at the big SuperTalk RV.  My first radio remote. I was too tired to be nervous.

The best thing about working at SuperTalk is that the people behind the scenes are top notch.  Gary and Houston were in charge of getting the show up and running technically.  The station manager up in Greenwood, Jim, lined me up a great line-up of guests.  All I had to do was ask good questions.

Good luck there.  But the questions came easy. The guests all had a great story to tell.

After three hours of talking about the town of Greenwood, I had a better idea about the small Delta town.  And myself.

To sum the show up in one word, it would be “Reinvention.”

Greenwood was born as a trading post and developed on the back of king cotton.  Civil rights tempered it.  The Blues became its theme music. The cotton trade waxed and waned. People left and leaders emerged.  Today thanks to businesses like Viking Range Corporation, the town is on the rise.  It’s bucking a trend that has many Delta towns starting to wither.  Greenwood is surviving. You can go to a world class resort (the Alluvian), listen to world class music (the Blues), eat world-class food (and learn to cook it at the Viking Cooking School) and buy world class furniture (John-Richard Furniture.)  Leaders like Fred Carl, Jr. and Alex Malouf are propelling it forward.   Recently the movie “The Help” was filmed there.  There is a level of cooperation between the leaders there that many towns would die for. And will die without.

The closing theme music played in my ears and I took off my headphones.  I said thank you to my hosts and grabbed a few snacks. I cranked my car and drove east away from the setting Delta sunset.  As I looked at the freshly plowed fields (that stretched on to the horizon), I began to to think:

Reinvention. Greenwood is figuring it out. It isn’t trying to stay the same. It’s changing — yet it’s honoring its past. It’s playing off its strengths.  Greenwood isn’t trying to become something its not. It’s trying to improve on what it is.  It’s not perfect. But its not sitting around feeling sorry for itself either.  It has taken change and used it like the heat that turns iron to steel.  It will be stronger for it.

I’m a radio host now. I hope for a long time.   But I’m also a cartoonist.  That’s what I am and what I do. As I drove up the bluff out of the Delta, I thought about my career. My reinvention.  I’ll continue to use my talents. I’ll work hard and accept change not as a threat but as the catalyst to make me a better person.  I’ll honor my past but look forward to a new, better future.

I’m going to set some goals today.  One of my rewards will be to spend a nice weekend at a world class resort with my wife.  Think I’ll go to the Alluvian.  I hear Greenwood is nice this time of year.