Marshall Ramsey

The Mississippi State Fair is winding down. The unique smell of fried food and cow manure, plus a week of fair funk, is wafting across the fairgrounds for only a few more days. Barkers try to get you to have them guess your weight, age or how much money you won’t soon have in your wallet. Rides go round and round and round and stomachs go up and down and down and up. Livestock will be judged, kids will make memories and parents will scramble for the ATM. As the heat of summer hangs on a little too long, we’ll enjoy our fried sushi on a stick and pray it doesn’t shoot through us.

Ah, the Fair.

I enjoy the Fair but probably not for the reasons most people do. Sure, I beeline for the free biscuit (best thing going) and love my annual duty as a Pretty Cow Contest judge. But what I enjoy the most is just watching the people. Of course, since this IS Mississippi, you will run into people you know. But it’s just neat to watch every shape, color, economic class and size Mississippian peacefully mingling up and down the Midway. Sure, there are occasional problems. But for the sheer number of people who visit the Fair, it’s really a nice little microcosm of our state. It’s truly the STATE fair. You see a lot of Mississippi walking around.

In a few days, the rides will be disassembled (disturbingly quickly I might add). The carnival workers will move on to their next fairground. The land near the Pearl will be swept and sit dormant until the next event.

I’ll walk around soaking it all in: The smells, the sights and the sounds.

And maybe I’ll spring for some fried sushi. It would do my heart some good.

My career as a janitor actually began before my year at Pope High School after college. When I was in high school, I’d work at local schools when I wasn’t playing football. I spent most of my time at Rocky Mount Elementary working after school. But one Spring Break, while my classmates were chasing the Devil at Panama City Beach, I was working at Kincaid Elementary School. I was there for one week and worked a full 40 hours. It was a good paycheck for me and would fill the gas tank of my Firebird for at least a month (and it was thirsty.)

I don’t remember who I worked with, but I do remember having the art room to clean. It had a tile floor and I scrubbed the living heck out of that room. I threw myself into the job. I mopped it daily and polished everything in sight. I was intense.

The other custodians told me to quit making them look bad. (I figured I didn’t need to help because they were doing a good enough job on their own.)

I’m not sure I would have put that much effort into it if I had been there the other 51 weeks of the year. I know, that’s a sad statement. Would I have not been as intense? That question is bugging me about my life right now. I need that same intensity I had when I was at Kincaid Elementary. Now. I have a lot of stuff I need to do. And I need to do it well.

I run and run and run and run and then burn out. When I burn out, the amount of stuff I have to do doesn’t slow down. It just overwhelms me and starts falling through the cracks. I end up doing a lot of apologizing. So I’ve taken an hour this morning to sit in my quiet house an reflect on what I need to do and when I need to do it. I’m now writing this and my to-do list.

I am wondering, “Am I lazy or just tired.” To be successful, you have to push past tired. If you don’t try, that’s lazy. I fear being lazy. Life is too much of a gift to waste.

So it’s time to have Kincaid Elementary intensity. It’s time to get to work. One person can make a difference. And intensity is the ingredient that makes it all happen.

The earth’s shadow began to munch on the moon. I drove down the dark Mississippi road, dodging deer and watching as the eclipse began to spread. By the time I got to the football stadium for my workout, over half the moon was plunged into darkness. It was a powerful sight.

We stretched and like Harold in Harold and the Purple Crayon, the moon was always with us. It loomed over its shoulder, dying quietly. It watched as we ran 100-yard sprints with a parachute on. It supervised us as we did what’s called a “nipple drill.” It began to slip behind the stadium as we did Clark’s station.

By then the moon was blood red. A Blood Moon as they call it — a total lunar eclipse. I can see why past civilizations would freak out when there was one. It was eerie. Stars dared to poke their faces out. It was like the eye of a celestial hurricane.

There was something very powerful about working out beneath a total lunar eclipse. Sure, technically it was just the earth’s shadow blocking the sun’s light reflecting off the moon. But to see the moon plunge into darkness that quickly was a not-so-subtle reminder that we are truly not in charge.

The moon began to dip beneath the trees for its final performance. It had put on a fine show. A haunting show. As I ran off the field, I did a slow clap. It was the moon’s finest hour. Great job moon. Great job.

“We’re all born the same way but there are a million ways to die.”

Tall, thin and tired, Paul Slansky poured a handful on the dirt on the polished coffin and then rubbed his temples. Fifteen years of marriage, seven of them good, were now officially over. “‘Til death do you part,” the priest had said on that happy day. He was right, of course. Now he had said it again. Paul just didn’t think it would be so soon.

He looked over at his two sons. What the heck would they do without their mother? And how would he be a single parent? His youngest son wouldn’t remember his mom. Paul shuffled his feet uncomfortably at the thought. While he and Anna weren’t exactly wildly in love, the one thing they agreed on were their two boys, Jack, aged nine and Matt, aged six. They were the loves of her life.

He looked over at the giant statue of Jesus in the cemetery. “I know we’re just passing friends, but could you tell your Dad I need some serious help here.” Paul felt depression pulling him into the ground with his wife. At times he couldn’t live with Anna. But he sure couldn’t live without her.

The sun began to dip down beneath the mountains. A chill gripped the mourners as they scurried to their cars. One chapter had ended in Paul Slansky’s life and another one was about to begin. The chapter of single parenthood.

He stood in the field of stones alone with two boys who needed him more now than ever.

Paul Slansky had been a father like his father — not a very good one. He devoted most of his life to chasing his career and leaving the child-stuff to Anna. But what Paul had not understood was this: Your career won’t hold your hand while you are dying. As he held Anna’s in her last days, that epiphany illuminated his selfish soul. He looked over at the two boys in their ill-fitting suits. They were his legacy.They were his new career. Paul Slansky helped bring his boys into the world. Now he was going to raise them.

The following Monday, Paul walked into his office and turned in his two-week notice. His boss, flabbergasted, said, “Paul, seriously, take some time off. I know you have been hit hard by this.” But Paul didn’t care. He knew what he had to do.

So he sold the house, had a yard sale, took his 401K money and moved from the suburbs of Atlanta to the mountains of East Tennessee. Through the help of a friend, Paul got a job teaching business at a local high school. Now he and his boys were on the same schedule. He and his boys could explore the mountains together.

And that they did.

The first hike they took was to Abrams Falls in Cades Cove. His own mother had taken him there when his father had died of a heart attack when he was nine. Paul remembered her spreading his ashes carefully at the base of the falls. Now Paul was back. He and the boys took a rose to represent their mother. Paul watched as the water crashed down over the rocks. Time was like that water, constantly breaking the stone and carving out rock. The boys released the rose in the clear cool water.

Paul would always be there for them. And their mother would always be, too.

Paul would make sure of that.

It’s hard to say when the recent low points were for Ole Miss and Mississippi State were but my guess would be the Rebel’s 2010 loss to Jacksonville State and the Bulldog’s 2004 loss to Maine. I could be wrong, but my point is this: To truly appreciate yesterday’s amazing football Saturday, you have to understand exactly how far out of a hole both teams have climbed.

On paper, Ole Miss and State should have trouble competing in the SEC. They’re smaller schools who compete for the same talent pool of recruits. They don’t have the monster facilities that some of the bigger SEC schools have. And of course, both schools don’t have Alabama-like money to play with. Money is the mother’s milk of college athletics after all.

But HOW did both teams turn around so quickly? And how did they do it with so much stacked against them?

1. There was a radical culture change at the top.
This isn’t a comment on Larry Templeton or Pete Boone, but State’s Greg Byrne and Scott Stricklin and Ross Bjork molded their athletic departments into more modern athletic departments. College athletics is big business and today must be run like one. I remember when Bjork was hired, he came on my radio show and talked about his pillars of success. It has been fun to watch him implement them. Both Bjork and Stricklin are energetic professionals and have influenced the culture of their organizations.

2. Hiring coaches who are energetic winners.
Love them or hate them but Hugh Freeze and Dan Mullen compete to win. I remember when Hugh Freeze was hired, people wondered, “who is this guy?” But what critics seemed to miss was that Freeze won at every level he has coached at. He came in with a plan. And stuck to it. Mullen was brash and got under the skin of Ole Miss fans nearly immediately (TSUN) and reenergized the rivalry. Ole Miss responded by bringing in Freeze who immediately became the anti-Mullen. The bottom line? Defeated fan bases became reenergized.

3. Marketing, marketing, marketing.
Both schools have had misfires when it comes to the fan experience but what matters is that they are learning from those mistakes. They are tweaking and trying new things. Ole Miss polls its fans on how to improve game day experience. State creates the hashtag #hailstate to use Twitter in new ways. Constant experimentation leads to a better customer service experience.

4. Surround yourself with great people.
Dan Mullen came in and won the recruiting wars. Then Hugh Freeze came in an won them back. Both brought in enough talented young players who made a difference on the field immediately. You can’t win without energized, talented people surrounding you — in football or business. They built for today while building for the future. That gave fans hope. Which led to:

5. Building on small wins and turning them into big wins.
When State went to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl and Ole Miss went to BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham, it was like National Championship games for the fan base. Because it showed them that after a long drought, things were changing. If you don’t have belief, you won’t have believers. And without believers, you won’t have support and money.

Ole Miss and Mississippi State’s success this weekend is about much more than just football. Their rapid turnaround is something that should be studied and modeled by business leaders and politicians who want to break a culture of failure. Imagine a failng business that hires a brash new leader who brings in motivated executives, hires good people, uses marketing to find out how they can serve their customers better and builds on small victories. I can’t imagine them doing anything but succeeding. Or imagine a government leader who makes his or her constituents believe again. You won’t be 49th for long.

Yesterday was an amazing day for football in Mississippi. But I can’t help but think it was a bigger lesson for us all.