The past is a powerful tool for understanding the present. There is no organized method for explaining what it means to be a student at Mississippi State University. A privileged few will discover the iceberg of history that is below the surface of the traditions and red brick facades of this campus.
One tradition that is widely observed but seldom understood in its fullness is the rivalry with Ole Miss. Faulkner once said his writings were about “the human heart in conflict with itself.” This quote has been used many times as a literary parallel describing the continuing state of affairs in Mississippi. There is no clearer picture of a state in conflict with itself than the picture painted by the strife between Mississippi State and Ole Miss.
For natives of Mississippi, the rivalry is just an accepted fact of life. Early on, children are encouraged by parents and friends to choose sides.
Once a side is chosen, there are several character traits that are assumed to go along with either fan profile; some are deserved, and some are not. Not all Ole Miss students are stuck-up elitists, and few Mississippi State students deserve the reputation of underachieving rednecks. What is the source of these stereotypes, and why is there such a stark contrast between these two groups of bitter rivals?
Arguably, the story of this conflict begins even before the establishment of any university in Mississippi. Almost as soon as Mississippi was settled by Europeans, tensions have existed between the social classes.
The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) was established in 1848 by the elite to educate the elite. According to “The University of Mississippi: Its First Hundred Years” by Allen Cabaniss, “The original Board of Trustees was made up of 13 of the most eminent men of the state.”
Like many established universities of the time, Ole Miss resisted the growing demand for agricultural and mechanical courses of study that would be more practical for the “common man” during the late 1800s. However, following the Civil War, the need for agricultural education in Mississippi became dire as crops began failing from years of poor farming.
The state Legislature attempted to meet the need in 1871 by establishing two agricultural and mechanical colleges, one at Alcorn State University for blacks and another at Ole Miss for whites. Ole Miss lacked the funding and state congressional support to succeed.
Additionally, despite the university’s best efforts, it seemed the social conditions of the time made it clear that the upper and lower classes were not willing to mix. According to “People’s College: a History of Mississippi State” by John K. Bettersworth, “The atmosphere at the university [Ole Miss] had proved unfavorable to agriculture.” In an expectedly contrary tone, “The University of Mississippi: a Sesquicentennial History” by David G. Sansing recounts, “Mississippi farmers and the state’s agricultural press preferred their own agricultural college separate and independent from the old aristocratic state university at Oxford.”
No matter which social class was to blame, the remnants of the “Old South” gentry and the upcoming “small farmer” working class were clearly not academically complementary. In 1876 the agriculture program at Ole Miss was abandoned. The program never enrolled more than 12 students per semester during its five-year existence.
Mississippi A&M College was established as a land grant institution in 1878. Starkville was soon chosen as the site for what would become Mississippi State University. Mississippi A&M was born out of social discontent. The college was created to be what Ole Miss could not be: a college for the people. The primary differences between State and Ole Miss are not made by the policies or the faculties, but by the attitudes and beliefs of the people who enroll and support these universities.
Sometimes the rivalry has escalated to the point of violence. During a football game between the two schools in 1926, Ole Miss, in celebration of their win over A&M, rushed the field to claim the goal posts as trophies. The A&M spectators met them on the field and a riot ensued.
The next year at the request of Sigma Iota, an Ole Miss honor society, a golden football trophy was awarded to the winner of the A&M/Ole Miss football game, and the Egg Bowl was born. In a recent edition of The Clarion-Ledger, Rick Cleveland wrote “football simply took the rivalry to another level. Football provided physical combat-the next best thing to a good, old street fight.”
The rivalry between State and Ole Miss has refused to go away; if anything, it has intensified. The differences between the universities continue to reflect the attitudes of their alumni and supporters, which are not necessarily shared by the administrators of the two schools.
During the civil rights movement in the early ’60s, Governor Ross Barnett, an Ole Miss alumni, went to unbelievable lengths to keep Ole Miss segregated. In 1965, Mississippi State truly became the people’s university when it peacefully began admitting minorities. Though Ole Miss has made great strides in dispelling racism, it still trails Mississippi State in diversity. In 2004, 26 percent of students at State were minorities while only 19 percent enrolled at Ole Miss were minorities.
When observing the history of this clash of ideologies, one can understand why the rivalry between State and Ole Miss shows no signs of dissipating.