Glasgow = Awesome

As most of you know our good friends Josh & Emily Blades are living in Glasgow, Scotland this year. At first I had no idea why in the world you would pick Glasgow, but after first finding out about John Smeaton, the only man that Chuck Norris fears, and now finding this I am beginning to figure out that Glasgow is the greatest place in the world...at least maybe for blog material. Here is a video of the Glasgow Diamonds from the 80's. Evidently this video was so popular it was shown during the 1987 Super Bowl... go figure. Josh I hope you have your season tickets!

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS: Unfortunately YouTube will not allow me to Embed the video so i had to go to another source. If you would like to view this great video on Youtube click here.

I Know...

It isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but I just needed a change. Plus the people in my neighborhood already have up their lights.

Forever a Disciple of the Maroon and White!

Wow, life has been crazy, but this is an occasion for posting. One, Travis and I watched the Bulldogs play "round ball" (as my dad calls it) last night and argued over what font they used to paint the court. I know, we are dorks. They didn't come out with a win, but who cares because I'm just so excited for Coach Croom. I read this article and shed a few tears. I love winning, but I love hearing people brag on a great guy. As I told my 3rd grade math class today during a rousing game of multiplication bingo, "cheaters never win, and winners never cheat." I love winning the right way. So here's the article that made me misty...the "son" quote will get you if your a crier like I am. ENJOY!

The post game prayer was almost over, the deep voice distinctly heard above the still-screaming, cowbell-clanging mob outside the dressing room doors celebrating Mississippi State's 17-12 victory over Alabama on Nov. 10.

"Thank you God for sending me these young men," Mississippi State fourth-year coach Sylvester Croom said with a mix of relief and conviction.

From the bowed heads of the players around came the instinctive response, "Thank you God for our coach."


Sylvester Croom has the Bulldogs bowl eligible for the first time since 2000.
It was an emotional, telling moment for Croom. He is such a personable, honest, straight-shooting figure that even media have been reluctant to skewer him for having just four SEC wins prior to this season.

When the Bulldogs beat the Crimson Tide to improve to 6-4 (3-3 in the SEC's Western Division) to gain bowl eligibility for the first time since 2000, a lot of people shared Croom's happiness.

Unless you've walked in Croom's shoes in a couple of different ways, first as a coach who took over a program on NCAA probation and the second as a coach at a place regarded as outside the winning tradition and budget of the SEC's power programs, you can't appreciate what mere bowl eligibility means for the Bulldogs.

Winning six, seven or eight games at Mississippi State -- and at Ole Miss -- is equal to winning 10, 11, 12 games at places like Florida, LSU, Auburn, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

"He's done an awesome job, he gets my vote for SEC Coach of the Year," Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville said of Croom. "He's a guy who's done it the right way."

Tuberville just didn't feel compelled to say that because Croom's Bulldogs beat Tuberville's Tigers, 19-14, on Sept. 15. In 1995, Tuberville took control of an Ole Miss program short on scholarships because of an NCAA probation and located in a state where there wasn't an abundance of major college caliber prospects who were academically qualified.

"I had a couple of talks with Sylvester when he took the job," Tuberville said. "I coached in that state, getting a program back on track coming off a probation, and he just asked how we did things.

"But he's done it his way. He's done it the right way. He put discipline back in the program that you need. From Day 1, he hasn't cut any corners, and sometimes it takes a little longer to get a program back that way."

It was Croom's stern but fair hand that convinced former MSU head coach Rockey Felker to do something that you rarely see.

Felker went back to work as an assistant coach at the school that fired him.

Felker is still the most beloved football player in Mississippi State history, a quarterback from 1970-74 who was the SEC's player of the year in '74 when he led the Bulldogs to a 9-3 record and a win in the Sun Bowl. He was the nation's youngest head coach when he took over the State program from 1986-90 before being fired.

After serving as an offensive coordinator assistant coach for a nine-year period at Tulsa and Arkansas, Felker came home to Starkville in 2002 as coordinator of football operations for previous coach Jackie Sherrill.

Felker thought he might get back on the field again. But when the running backs coach spot opened after last season, he was approached by Croom.

Felker's love for his school had him leaning toward saying "yes." But his respect for the way Croom ran the program made it a no-brainer.

"He had a plan and he stuck through it, in terms of discipline, being hard nosed and recruiting a certain type of young man," Felker said. "He could have won a few more games earlier if he had not stuck to the plan.

"But he was willing to sacrifice some wins for building the program the right way. What you see in Sylvester Croom is what you get. If he tells you something, you can believe it."


Senior Titus Brown and the Bulldogs are enjoying the 2007 ride.

Believe this -- Croom should have his best recruiting class to date this winter, and that's because of this year's success and the fact his players believe in him. The best recruiters any coach can ask for are his own players, like senior Titus Brown.

"One of the things that sold me on coach is what he said when he came to my house and he recruited me," Brown said. "He sat in my living room, he looked my mom and dad in their eyes and said, 'This is your son. When he signs with Mississippi State, he becomes my son.' That's what really sold me. I wanted a coach who really cared about me on and off the field."

On Saturday, when Brown closed out the Alabama victory with a game-ending sack of Tide quarterback John Parker Wilson, he was stunned when Croom ran to the pile, bear-hugged the 6-foot-3, 250-pound Brown and ran 30 yards down field with him.

"The man is crazy," said Brown with a laugh.

The man is also focused, and he's hoping that his team will be viewed differently from now on.

"We beat Auburn at Auburn, we beat Kentucky at Kentucky and we beat Alabama," Croom said. "What happens in all those games is it [the reaction] is not like we played well, it's like the other team had a bad day.

"It bothered me that we weren't the favored team here at home [prior to the Alabama game] over basically the same team that we beat the year before on the road in Tuscaloosa."

Croom said that during the pregame warm-ups before Saturday's game, he exchanged pleasantries with Alabama coach Nick Saban.

"He said after the [last] two years he had been out of conference [when Saban was head coach of the NFL's Miami Dolphins], he was amazed how much difference there was in our football team. That was a class thing for him to say."

Croom said the only way his team would keep gaining more respect was to keep winning. He hopes the days are over of media members writing or saying that an opposing team that lost to Mississippi State had been "Croomed."

Going into this season, Croom was 4-20 in SEC play and two of those wins resulted in the firing of coaches Ron Zook of Florida in 2004 and Mike Shula of Alabama last season.


Anthony Dixon and the Bulldogs ran past Alabama on Saturday.

"That's not one of my favorite deals," Croom said of the word 'Croomed.' "I thought Ron did a good job at Florida and he left a lot of outstanding players. [Florida coach] Urban [Meyer] has been the beneficiary of that.

"I sort of took it as a little bit of insult to our program just because they [Florida] lost to Mississippi State there was this attitude that if Mississippi State beat you, then there must be something totally wrong with your program.

"They are not going to fire everybody we beat, because sooner or later they are going to run out of coaches."

Ironically, Croom is playing against a coach on Saturday, Arkansas' Houston Nutt, who will likely be fired or quit. Croom is 0-3 against Arkansas, and Mississippi State has never won a game in the state of Arkansas. The Bulldogs are 0-4 in Fayetteville and 0-4-1 in Little Rock.

There's also this motivation for the Bulldogs: While they are bowl eligible, a seventh win would assure them of a bowl bid, because NCAA rules now state bowls must fill spots with seven-win teams before six-win teams.

"I don't want to put it in somebody else's hands," Croom said. "It's up to us. If we want to assure ourselves of getting in a bowl, we need to get another win."

If the Bulldogs win out, beating both Arkansas and then Ole Miss on Nov. 23 to finish 8-4, there's a good chance the Bulldogs could end up in the Cotton Bowl if the SEC gets a second team in a BCS bowl.

A 7-5 Mississippi State team could land in either the AutoZone Liberty Bowl or the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl.

Croom said before the Kentucky game he told his team it was a four-game season.

"Right now, we're 2-0," Croom said.

Players like running back Anthony Dixon bought into Croom's stretch-run tunnel vision.

"It's like coach Croom told us, that we could win any of these games or lose all of them," Dixon said. "We just take one game at a time. A lot of people don't want to believe that."

But his players do. And that's all that really matters.

Ron Higgins covers the Southeastern Conference for the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn.

-Yeah, I posted a comment on the ESPN site. Don't be embarrassed to call me a friend. I couldn't help myself!

Livin La Vida Loca...update

As you can tell by the lack of posting it has been pretty busy around the Wolfe house. Laurette is in Math for her education classes and loves it just like any great communication major would...yeah right. She has her practicum this week and she goes into school at 7:00am leaves at 8:15am and heads to work by 9:00am. She is also studying for her second Praxis test, kinda like an ACT for teachers. She takes that later this month. We have also stepped up and taken over the Sunday Night Youth Fellowship at our church. Last night we had the kids sample various baby foods without them knowing what it was. It was a fun time to watch their faces when they would eat stuff like chicken with gravy and bacon baby food. If anyone has any fun game ideas, please share, looks like we will be doing this for the long haul, and we are always up for ideas.

Late in September I blogged about receiving a ton of $5 off coupons from Qdoba Mexican Grill. Sadly this offer expired on Saturday, but that is not to say I didn’t take advantage of a sweet .75 cent burrito. I have the count somewhere around 23 chicken burritos in total I consumed in October. That is a savings of around $115! I also do not want to see a burrito for at least another month.

I went to a great concert on Friday night by The John Butler Trio (Click the link to see the band and fellow aussie Keith Urban performing). I have to say it was the best indoor concert I have ever been to. I think I will blog about that sometime, but I am thinking about doing my own music blog, so we will see what happens. That way I don’t bug anyone on here with all my music stuff. We went to a friends wedding in Jackson, TN on Saturday night and Laurette looked stunning. She won over all my high school buddies… and their mothers. That is a little bit on us. Hope everyone is doing well.

Hey Bo Diddley

My father-in-law Mr. Clark had a great post regarding Bo Diddley (read it here). After reading his I felt the need to post a few videos just so people can see how amazing he really is. Diddley first came on the scene around 1955 and basically made it ok for white teenagers to listen to the Blues. Diddley paved the way for Chuck Berry, Elvis and really anyone playing rock music today. He also opened the door for many to discover great blues musicians like John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf and RL Burnside. The first video is a classic TV performance from way back. Watch how the girls are all screaming and going crazy, but not one of them ever stands up. They are glued to their seats as if society would disown them if they even thought about dancing. You can tell how badly they want to just go crazy. The second video is of Diddley in his prime with no restraints, by the early 70's it was ok to dance and you can tell just how much he was holding himself back in the first video, both in guitar playing and dancing. Listen and you can hear the keyboard player barely able to keep up, Diddley is playing so fast. I hope you enjoy.

EUROPE PICTURES...finally

Just click on the link to view a few snapshots from the week 'o fun with the Blades and the Joneses (Europe Pics). The above is a picture of us in Hofgarten in Munich, Germany. Too much fun. We were on our 5 mile bike ride through the city. We were about to encounter naked soccer players, but luckily I didn't have my glasses on...I could only see flesh...no details! thank the Good LORD! I don't think I could have handled that!

God Bless America and Marty Stuart

Laurette was in class all day today and I needed to get away from the slumber party going on at our house (Laurette will fill you all in on that), so I decided to head downtown. I had planned on making the trek downtown earlier this week because I had heard that Ron Paul would be speaking at a rally. Ron Paul is a presidential candidate and although I agree with him on some issues, I can't say I agree on them all, but I will keep my politics out of this blog. Nonetheless, I was very interested in going to a political rally for event production notes and also I just wanted a chance to see a presidential candidate in action. The following is a photo log of my day, I hope you enjoy.


On my way to the rally I passed the State Museum and I remembered that Marty Stuart is currently showing select items from his Country Music memorabilia collection. Marty has over 20,000 historic items that he has collected through the years. Since it was free and I had some time I decided to stop in. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the history of country music. It was unbelievable! The photo above is Earl Scruggs' banjo and Lester Flatt's guitar, in the middle is one of Marty's first performance shirts when he was touring with the group as a kid. Needless to say I bit off more then I could chew and there was no way I could make it through the exhibit in 30 minutes, so I told myself I would come back after the rally.


The crowd was pretty bare inside 30 minutes before the start and I was beginning to worry about ole Ron, so I decided to venture outside for a while and see what was happening. I had no idea what I was in for. Of course like any great thing in Tennessee, it isn't a party till someone pulls out the guitar and banjo.


Ain't no party like a Tennessee party cause a Tennessee party don't stop...Not even if you are a crazy mountain man with signs.


After seeing this guy I was a little ticked off that I had left my revolutionary war outfit at home on account of the warm weather.



A hippy in her natural habitat. I had to get a picture of her shirt, if you can't read the bottom, click on the photo for a closer view it's worth it.


The man of the hour, Ron Paul. He was received with a loud crowd screaming his name. What the photo does not show was he was outfitted in a nice black suit and some lovely velcro laced tennis shoes. I guess the guy walks a lot, I will let him pass on that one, at least the shoes were black as well.

After we all headed into the venue we were treated to the candidates bumper music. I always find this funny in campaigns, all the candidates have special songs that are supposed to stand for their campaign, blah, blah, blah. Ron's were pretty typical until Motley Crue came over the loudspeakers. At first I was shocked that someone would pick Motley Crue, and then it got worse. I realized the song was "Dr. Feelgood" are you kidding me? that was both creepy and weird. You see Ron Paul is an OB GYN and has delivered over 4,000 babies. I don't really think the campaign staff have ever truly listened to the lyrics of that song, nor do I believe they have ever put 2 and 2 together...well I did. YIKES!


After that some artist performed and we all sang "God Bless America". I got major chills, just because it is so cool that we live in a country where we do have the freedom to assemble. We live in a country where a guy can where velcro shoes if he would like, and play completely awkward songs during political rallies. Ron then got on stage and presented a 45 minute speech. It was a little long winded but you got the feel that this guy had so many things he wants to share and just not enough time. He was very very smart and he isn't a cheerleader type of politician. I enjoyed his speech and respect his commitment to upholding the constitution. In closing, it was very neat to be able to see our political process in action and Paul was a well versed speaker that did a very good job at presenting his message. It was a reminder to me of what a great country we live in. Below are some additional photos from my trip back to the Marty Stuart Collection. If anyone needs me I will be writing the next Toby Keith hit. America Rocks!!!!


Johnny Cash Stage Outfit, he also has several original lyric sheets from Cash, I was awestruck.


A stage outfit from Hank Williams, to me the coolest thing in the exhibit, they also had his 3 grade report card. Hank was not a very smart student, but later on in life he apparently loved the double-breasted suit, don't we all... Also according to this replica, Hank Williams had a 3 foot head judging by how high they placed the cowboy hat on top.


A stage outfit from one of my favorites, "the Singing Fisherman" Johnny Horton. This outfit just goes back to the flashy days of country music. Buck Owens, Porter Wagner, Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, I could go on and on, I love every bit of it.

On a side note, both Hank Williams and Johnny Horton were married to the same woman at the time of their deaths. Horton was struck by a drunk driver in 1960 and killed in his car just like Hank. In addition Hank and Johnny both died in Cadillacs, both played their last shows at the Skyline Club in Austin, Texas, and years before in 1953 Johnny was returning from a gig, when he heard over the radio about the death of Hank Williams. He was on Highway 79 going through the town of Milano, Texas - the same town where Johnny would lose his life 7 years later. Crazy stuff huh?



One of Johnny Cash's favorite guitars. This was at the end of the exhibit and when I saw this I got a few more chills. Just like Mother Maybelle's Guitar, the heart of country music lives inside that guitar and I am thankful to Marty for his passion to preserve all this wonderful history. Well if you made it this far, thanks for reading, and I guess it goes without saying, but today was a good day.