| Wednesday, October 2, 2019 |
| Mississippi State unveils new animal and dairy sciences building | |
 | After nearly two years of construction, Mississippi State University's Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences now has a new home. The department's new building was opened with a ribbon cutting Monday. The 34,500-square-foot, $14 million state-of-the-art facility features increased technology and classroom and laboratory space for the department's students and faculty. Graduate students and faculty have already moved their research in to the new facility, and classes in the new building begin next week. In his address prior to the ribbon cutting, MSU President Mark Keenum thanked everyone involved in the project for their support, particularly legislators who supported the project. Additionally, Keenum spoke to MSU's long heritage as a leader in agricultural research. "I think it does showcase the importance we place on agriculture here at this top 10 agriculture university," Keenum said. |
| Aldermen receive downtown guideline presentation | |
| Business owners and prospective business owners in downtown Starkville now have a new set of guidelines and best practices from the Mississippi State University Carl Small Town Center. Carl Small Town Center Director Leah Kemp went over the new list with the Starkville Board of Aldermen at its work session on Friday, Sept. 27. The design guidelines were created over the past year for buildings in the Downtown Starkville Historic District. The district stretches along Main Street from Montgomery Street to just east of City Hall. The guidelines are available on the city of Starkville website. "The purpose of these guidelines is really twofold," Kemp said. "One, for any property owners who are building something or maintaining a building, or maintenance or rehab of a building downtown. We could use some guidelines on that, and then encouraging property owners to apply for tax credits." |
| Career expo draws thousands of eighth-graders from around Northeast Mississippi | |
 | Thousands of eighth-graders from around Northeast Mississippi got to explore hundreds of careers without leaving the grounds of the BancorpSouth Arena. During the fifth annual Imagine the Possibilities Career Expo organized by the Toyota Wellspring Education Fund, the students could try their hand at delivering a baby in a life-size simulator, test drive a surgical robot, and explore manufacturing via virtual reality. On Tuesday, more than 2,200 students toured career exhibits. Another 5,000 eighth-graders will continue their exploration on today and Thursday morning. In all, 75 schools in 17 Northeast Mississippi counties will bring students to the expo. Professionals representing more than 130 businesses brought cars, drones, robots of all stripes, front end loaders and simulators to allow the students to explore 18 different career paths. "It was so inspiring," said expo volunteer Janet Suggs. "The more interactive the exhibits were, the more engaged (the students) were." |
| State asking everyone to postpone all outdoor burning | |
 | The Mississippi Forestry Commission is asking the public to hold off on all outdoor burning because of the high risk of starting a wildfire. That request came with the agency issuing a Wildland Fire Alert late Tuesday morning. The alert does not replace the countywide burn bans that are in effect. For the moment, 30 counties statewide are under burn bans, which means someone caught illegally burning outside could be fined up to $500. The commission is also concerned with deer season opening Tuesday that more people will be in the woods. That's why the state is also reminding people to use caution when getting rid of cigarette butts and parking vehicles over dry grass. |
| Specialty license plate sales up 10% in Mississippi as blue guitars fade to brown | |
 | Those blue guitar license plates are disappearing across Mississippi and any car or truck that still wears one come in January will be an easy target for a traffic ticket. "The reissue started in January 2019 and will be completed in December," said Kaitlin O'Dougherty, spokeswoman for Mississippi Department of Revenue. That means by the end of the year, "Lucille" will be retired. The blue and white plate, honoring Mississippi musician B.B. King and his guitar Lucille, was issued in October 2012. It stayed around for six years instead of the usual five when the Legislature didn't provide the money to renew them sooner. The problem is many people in the state aren't crazy about the "dirty" brown color and the design of the new plate. There's a fix for that -- actually more than 225 options -- and nearly one in four of Mississippi's 2.9 million vehicles now sports a specialty plate or a vanity plate with a personalized message. Sales of specialty plates are up 10% from January through August compared to the same time last year, O'Dougherty said. |
| Tate Reeves questions how state can afford Hood's proposals; Jim Hood said setting priorities key | |
 | Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood has outlined an aggressive and ambitious agenda in his quest to win the Nov. 5 governor's election against Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves. Some question how will he pay for it. "Jim Hood has an expensive wish list for K-12 education that could hit taxpayers right in the wallet," the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, a conservative, limited government advocacy group, proclaimed on its web page. On social media, Reeves said, "Jim Hood cannot defend his liberal agenda. We know that his big government plan would bankrupt Mississippi." Hood, a four term attorney general and Mississippi's only statewide elected Democrat, concedes that his agenda is bold, but says that it is needed to move the state forward. He also concedes that it cannot all be done overnight. "We don't expect to do all of this in the first year, but we are laying out priorities and the direction we want to see this state take," Hood said in response to questions from Mississippi Today. |
| After investigation, Jim Hood uses ad to attack Tate Reeves over frontage road | |
 | Attorney General Jim Hood has released a new television ad attacking his gubernatorial opponent Tate Reeves' over a now-halted state road to connect the lieutenant governor's gated Flowood subdivision to a nearby shopping center. The statewide ad follows an investigative report released three weeks ago by Hood's office about political pressure Reeves applied for the now-scuttled project. The investigation found Reeves may have violated a Mississippi Constitution section meant to prevent corruption, though the AG's office said it would take no further action. The TV spot shows the Democratic AG will continue using the frontage road as a campaign issue -- despite his own involvement in the investigation. The Reeves campaign has labeled Hood's direct involvement in the report as an "abuse of office," considering he's running against Reeves, the Republican nominee, in the general election next month. The ad cites an investigation by the Clarion Ledger which prompted shelving the project and Hood's probe more than a year ago. The ad doesn't specifically mention the investigation Hood conducted, but his campaign has tweeted about it. |
| Poll finds Mississippi Democrats more enthusiastic than Republicans for November election | |
| A majority of "Republican leaners" and independents who normally vote Republican are not enthusiastic about the upcoming November general election, according to the quarterly Millsaps polls conducted by Mississippi-based Chism strategies. According to the poll, respondents who label themselves as "strong" Republicans or Democrats "are energized about the November general election." But the pollster pointed out when comparing those who "lean Democrat" to those who "lean Republican" and self-styled independents who normally vote Republicans "Democrats hold a considerable advantage in voter enthusiasm." According to the poll, 53 percent of the Democratic leaners "are very or somewhat enthusiastic" while 63 percent of Republican leaners are "not very enthusiastic" or "disappointed in their choices." The poll of 606 registered voters in the state has a margin of error of less than 4 percent. It is the ninth quarterly survey conducted by Millsaps and Chism Strategies. Chism has done some contractual work for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jim Hood, the state's attorney general. |
| Jackson Restricts Anti-Abortion Activists With New Buffer Zone, Noise Law | |
| Anti-abortion protesters in Jackson will now have to voice their concerns standing at least 15 feet away from the Jackson Women's Health Organization in Fondren, and will no longer be able to engage in loud activities, such as shouting or using loud-speaker systems to get their message out. JWHO is the only remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi. The Jackson City Council approved the "buffer zone" ordinance on Tuesday, after a heated meeting in which more than a dozen community members spoke out against or in favor of the ordinance. Nathan Glenn, the owner of restaurants Roosters and Basil's right across from the clinic in Fondren, told the council last week that the current atmosphere is bad for business. "When they have the microphones out, I have been accused of cooking babies in the kitchen, of frying little kids," Glenn said. "As customers are sitting on my open patio, they say, 'How can you be over there eating cheeseburgers when they're killing babies?' ... It's almost social terrorism. These are aggressive people." |
| HUD Secretary Ben Carson Promotes Revitalizing Distressed Areas | |
 | Several hundred people are in Jackson for the Southeastern Regional Opportunity Zones Summit. U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson is promoting the program. It provides tax incentives to investors to create businesses and affordable housing in distressed communities nationwide. "For every person that we get off of dependency it's one less person we have to support and one more tax paying productive member of society who may discover a new energy source," said Carson. Mississippi has 100 Opportunity Zones. Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs says his city was the first in the nation to use the program. He says last year a lumbermill was about to close. But they were able to find an investor willing to operate the business and 125 jobs were saved. "It allowed him to use his tax credit in lieu of cash dollars to do the deal and then on top of that we subsidized it by putting local money in it too," said Flaggs. The program fosters collaboration between non-profits, local leaders and investors to obtain funding for projects. |
| Ag secretary: No guarantee small dairy farms will survive | |
 | President Donald Trump's agriculture secretary said Tuesday during a stop in Wisconsin that he doesn't know if the family dairy farm can survive as the industry moves toward a factory farm model. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters following an appearance at the World Dairy Expo in Madison that it's getting harder for farmers to get by on milking smaller herds. "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out," Perdue said. "I don't think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability." Perdue's visit comes as Wisconsin dairy farmers are wrestling with a host of problems, including declining milk prices, rising suicide rates, the transition to larger farms with hundreds or thousands of animals and Trump's international trade wars. Perdue said he believes the 2018 farm bill should help farmers stay afloat. The bill reauthorizes agriculture and conservation programs at a rough cost of $400 billion over five years or $867 billion over 10 years. But he warned that small farms will still struggle to compete. |
| Trump under pressure to address ethanol and trade pain in Iowa and other farm states | |
 | On a typical day, about 80 tractor trailers full of corn line up to dump their loads at Siouxland Energy Cooperative, the ethanol plant just outside of town. The air throbs with the noise and vibration of this industrial moonshine operation, which distills nature's harvest into a cleaner-burning fuel. But today, the warm Iowa sun shines on an almost empty parking lot, and the machinery sits idle. After two decades, Siouxland this month halted operations following the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to exempt 31 small oil refiners from a federal law requiring them to blend ethanol in their gasoline. The waivers, which the Trump administration has approved almost four times as often as its predecessor, have undercut demand for ethanol and the corn used to make it, farmers said. For Iowa farmers already suffering from an extended trade war with China, the ruling has made ethanol the focus of their growing ire over President Trump's policies. |
| Bolstered By Impeachment Inquiry, Trump Campaign And RNC Raise $125 Million | |
 | The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee took in a huge haul in the third quarter, which ended Monday -- a combined $125 million. This means that this year alone, they've raised more than $300 million -- double the total that then-President Obama and the Democratic Party had raised at this point in 2011 on Obama's way to a successful reelection bid. But there's a big difference between now and 2011 -- President Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry. The campaign claims that this move by House Democrats helped supercharge Trump's fundraising. Three days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House was launching an impeachment inquiry into Trump, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale crowed about new donors pouring into the campaign. |
| How President Pence Would Blow Up 2020 | |
 | If the Senate were to remove President Donald Trump from office -- which could happen only on a bipartisan vote -- the 2016 election results wouldn't be overturned. Democrats wouldn't control the White House. America's reward for convicting Trump would be President Michael Richard Pence. Nine out of every 10 Republican respondents said in a Quinnipiac poll released Monday that Trump should not be impeached and removed from office. But President Pence would likely be harder for Democrats to dispatch in the 2020 general election than an impeached but still in office President Trump. Pence's net favorability, while underwater, is better than Trump's. Upon entering the Oval Office, the low-key Midwesterner might prove willing and able turn the page, restore calm and soothe an exhausted electorate. He could even tap one of the best-liked, least tainted Republicans left standing -- former South Carolina Governor and Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley -- to diversify the ticket. Suddenly, the political calculations for Democratic candidates, and Democratic voters, would change. And it could completely flip the current hierarchy of the field. |
| FAA certification of UPS drone delivery business is a national first | |
| Package delivery giant UPS has won the first-ever approval to broadly deliver packages by drone, beating Amazon to the punch nearly six years after Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos said drones could be dropping off packages by 2015. The FAA said in a release that UPS Flight Forward, a subsidiary of UPS, can now deliver packages for pay, use multiple drones and deliver health care supplies beyond visual line of sight, which is currently restricted unless a company gets special permission. It's the first certification of its kind, and according to UPS means no limits on the scope or size of its operations. It is a major step toward the delivery-by-drone vision Bezos promised, in what at the time seemed like a pipe dream. The UPS approval, awarded under DOT's drone Integration Pilot Program, was officially handed down on Friday. UPS said it then made a drone delivery at the WakeMed hospital campus in Raleigh, N.C. |
| Mississippi reports 5th vape lung case | |
| The Mississippi State Department of Health identified a fifth case of vaping-related lung illness on Tuesday morning. The Mississippi cases, which include one death, have affected people between the ages of 18 and 34. Mississippi is one of 46 states and one U.S. territory that have logged cases of the severe pulmonary disease of lung injury linked to the use of e-cigarette products. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there have been 805 cases of lung illness related to vaping as of Sept. 24. There have been 12 deaths in 10 states. Many of the cases across the United States are linked with a history of vaping cannabis products, such as tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, in addition to nicotine products, but no specific product such as the device, liquid, refill pods or cartridge has been clearly identified as the cause of illness. |
| Ole Miss Chancellor Candidate Series: Kelly Damphousse | |
| Editor's Note: Following a Sept. 19 board meeting of the Institutions of Higher Learning, the pool for the next University of Mississippi Chancellor has been narrowed down to eight candidates, per a report from Mississippi Today. Over the next eight days, the EAGLE will print biographies of each of the eight candidates, going in alphabetical order. The second candidate featured will be Kelly Damphousse. Kelly Damphousse has served as chancellor at Arkansas State University since 2017. Since his arrival at ASU, he has coined the catchphrase "Every Red Wolf Counts" as an operating philosophy. Damphousse, who was raised in a fishing village in northern Canada, attended Lethbridge Community College, where he earned an associate's degree in law enforcement in 1982. A failed professional hockey tryout foiled one of his two early life ambitions -- a career as a goalie in the NHL. His degree was the starting point for his other goal -- becoming a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer. |
| Troy University suspends all frat pledging activities in wake of hazing investigation | |
| Troy University has halted all new fraternity member operations amid a hazing investigation that has seen two chapters suspended. A memorandum sent Tuesday to all North American Interfraternity Conference members at the university said pledging activities will "cease and be placed on hold until further notice." "The Greek system is an important part of our university, and fraternities make many positive contributions to the community through their philanthropy and service," said Herb Reeves, Dean of Student of Services, in an emailed statement. "However, we expect our Greek organizations to meet a high standard of behavior and leadership. We feel that this is an important moment to thoroughly review the new-member processes of fraternities and to remind these organizations of their responsibilities to themselves and others."More: Troy University suspends second fraternity over hazing allegations In the memo distributed to fraternity members on Tuesday, Reeves directly cited "hazing and risk management issues" the university has "experienced" this fall. |
| U. of Florida to pay Donald Trump Jr., adviser $50K for speech | |
 | Donald Trump Jr. and a senior adviser for President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign will be paid $50,000 to speak at the University of Florida campus next week. On Oct. 10 in the University Auditorium, Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, a senior adviser for the president's re-election campaign and a former Fox News show co-host, will give a keynote presentation, the ACCENT Speakers Bureau announced on social media Tuesday. Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle, who are dating, will also have a 15-minute question and answer session. ACCENT, part of UF student government, will host the event, which is free to the public. ACCENT pays speakers using UF students' activity fees. For every tuition credit hour students pay for, $19.06 is funneled into activity fees. Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle spoke at Penn State University in April, where they joined Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk during his talk there. The Daily Collegian, an independent, student-run newspaper at Penn State, reported that more than 2,000 people attended Trump Jr.'s April 23 talk. Both supporters and protesters attended. |
| U. of Arkansas Chancellor Joe Steinmetz sees need for enrollment strategy | |
| Fewer high school graduates in the years ahead means the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville must adopt strategies for maintaining student enrollment, Chancellor Joe Steinmetz said Tuesday. "Financial models that are built on student growth are simply not sustainable, and, I submit, simply not wise," Steinmetz said in his annual all-campus talk. This fall, UA's enrollment slid less than 1% to 27,559 students, with most other four-year universities in the state also experiencing year-over-year declines based on preliminary state data. Notably for UA, the dip ended more than a decade of yearly enrollment growth built largely on recruitment of out-of-state students. Steinmetz said UA nationally had been the fastest-growing "flagship" university from 2007-2016. But he described an expectation that the population of students exiting high school will flatten, and then, after 2025, begin a sharp decline. For the state, a percentage decline of 30% or more is predicted by some when it comes to the number of college-going students in 2029 compared with 2017, Steinmetz said. |
| Texas A&M University System to ban e-cigarettes at all facilities | |
 | Vaping will be banned from all Texas A&M University System facilities "as soon as is practical," according to a memorandum released Tuesday from System Chancellor John Sharp. Sharp sites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that there have been 805 cases of lung injury and 12 deaths across the nation among e-cigarette users, as the reason for the ban. "I do not want to take any unnecessary chances with the health of our students, faculty and Staff," Sharp said in the memo. "To that end, I am directing the presidents of each of the 11 universities and the directors of the eight state agencies within The Texas A&M University System to ban the use of e-cigarettes and vaping as soon as possible." While smoking is already prohibited in most places, Sharp called for the vaping ban "to be mandatory and expanded to every inch of the Texas A&M System." This will cover more than the university has in the past, A&M System executive director of marketing and communications Tim Eaton said. |
| U. of Missouri students facing assault charges following alleged incident at fraternity house | |
 | Three University of Missouri students have been arrested after allegedly assaulting a fellow student and damaging his property two weeks ago. Joseph and Jared Huber were arrested Thursday. Jaret Carlsen was arrested Tuesday. Joseph Huber, Jared Huber and Carlsen are all facing first-degree assault charges, according to court documents. The victim told MU police that before the assault an altercation occurred at 8:30 p.m. Sept. 14 in the parking lot of his residence, the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house at 916 S. Providence Road, according to the probable cause statement. After the alleged incident, the victim stated he left the house and did not return until 10 p.m that evening. When he returned he said he found his clothing, bedding and other belongings on the floor covered in various liquids including urine. He said his mattress, clothes and other personal items were destroyed, according to the statement. The assault was recorded by video surveillance cameras installed in the house. |
| How did these schools increase college graduation rates? | |
| From the University of Massachusetts to the University of Hawaii, university presidents and senior leaders from over 20 schools across the U.S. came together for a two-day College Completion Summit this week at the University of Utah to share best practices on how the schools have managed to increase their school's completion rates. Revitalizing college advising culture, providing additional need-based scholarships and prioritizing student success were common threads from university leaders who've found success in raising student graduation rates. Jorge Perez, associate vice president of academic affairs and success at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said everything he and his brother have been able to accomplish has been due to their higher education. "The American dream has changed considerably since I was in college," he said. |
| The students disappearing fastest from American campuses? Middle-class ones | |
| The proportion of middle-class students at colleges and universities has been quietly declining, sharply enough that some institutions -- worried about the effect on campus diversity and their own bottom lines -- have started publicly announcing special scholarships to cover all or most of their tuition. It may seem counterintuitive to hear that efforts to increase diversity include enrolling more students from the middle class, as opposed to those from families with the lowest incomes. In fact, the proportion of students on college campuses from the lowest-income families is going up, the Pew Research Center reports, while the share of students from the middle has fallen in the last two decades from 48 percent to 42 percent at private, nonprofit institutions, and from 48 percent to 40 percent at public four-year universities. "There has been a lot of concern about that group in the middle, which has only gotten greater as the costs have gone up," said Karen McCarthy, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and a former university financial aid officer. |
| Federal judge finds that Harvard's policies do not discriminate against Asian Americans | |
 | A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Harvard University's admissions policies do not discriminate against Asian American applicants. The ruling by Judge Allison Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts came in a much-watched case brought by a long-standing critic of affirmative action on behalf of a group of Asian American plaintiffs. Her decision upholding the Ivy League university's policies confounded the predictions of many commentators, who had seen Harvard's approach as vulnerable. While she said Harvard's admissions approach was "not perfect," "the court will not dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better." Edward Blum, the president of Students for Fair Admissions, which sued Harvard, said, "Students for Fair Admissions is disappointed that the court has upheld Harvard's discriminatory admissions policies." Blum added, "SFFA will appeal this decision to the First Court of Appeals and, if necessary, to the U.S. Supreme Court." |
| 'Fear' of a President Elizabeth Warren Is Hurting For-Profit Education Stocks, Analysts Say | |
| For-profit education stocks may continue to be volatile as the sector prices in the rising poll figures for Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who's been an outspoken critic of the industry. The Russell 3000 Education Services Index (RGUSDES) shed roughly 13% in September, led in part by double-digit losses at Career Education Corp., Strategic Education Inc. and Adtalem Global Education Inc. The stocks have been on a downward slide as Senator Warren took aim at the industry with a letter to private equity firms demanding to know details about their holdings in the sector. Under the Obama administration, scrutiny and regulation of the industry was a key goal, catalyzed by complaints that it was misleading students and saddling them with debts they couldn't repay. But since then, the Trump administration has repealed many Obama-era provisions, which sent shares in several for-profit colleges soaring earlier this year. |
| Fifth Circuit nominee opposition is 'purity' politics | |
| Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: While most people aspire to the assurance that judges are first and foremost fair and unbiased in their rulings, President Donald Trump's nomination of Southern District U.S. Federal Judge Halil Suleyman "Sul" Ozerden of Gulfport to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has evoked a far different response from some segments of the far right led by Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Cruz, who fought Trump hammer and tong for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, lost a truly bitter primary battle against him that included the worst sorts of personal attacks. During the campaign, Trump went after Cruz, Cruz's wife, Heidi, and his father, Rafael -- citing a National Enquirer story that linked the elder Cruz to JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Not to be outdone, Cruz answered with some attacks of his own, calling Trump a "narcissist" and "serial philanderer" and someone for whom "morality doesn't exist." Let's step back from the Trump v. Cruz battle and focus on Judge Sul Ozerden. |
SPORTS
| Tommy Stevens still injured, Kareem Walker on the field for Mississippi State | |
 | Joe Moorhead isn't over Mississippi State's loss to Auburn. He's just learning to live with it. Moorhead said his players put their 56-23 loss to the Tigers "to bed" on Sunday, but there's always part of a competitor that won't forget a defeat as devastating as that one. "The physical and emotional investment that goes into preparing for a football game and then playing it and having it come out the way it did, the food doesn't taste good, you don't get much sleep," Moorhead said. "It eats a hole in ya. That's just is what it is. The losses hurt more than the wins feel good." The Bulldogs (3-2, 1-1 SEC) have an open date to come to terms with the loss before they try to right the ship against Tennessee (1-3, 0-1). |
| NOTEBOOK: Bulldogs getting back to the basics | |
| Mississippi State is going back to the basics during its open week. The Bulldogs' first two practices since Saturday's 56-23 loss to Auburn have been focused on fundamentals and getting reps for some of the more inexperienced players on the roster. "We made it more of a developmental type of practice where the redshirts and some of the younger guys are getting a majority of the reps," said MSU coach Joe Moorhead. "It was good, really spirited. They really flew around and competed. We'll do that again tomorrow and the players will be off Thursday, Friday and Saturday. "We're going to hit the road recruiting on Thursday." |
| A league of their own: Ole Miss Esports prepares ahead of Egg Bowl | |
 | As a kid growing up on the South Side of Chicago, Sergio Brack's parents didn't want him to leave the house. They were afraid of the negative influence that his neighborhood could have on him, so Brack devoted all of his time indoors playing video games and quickly fell in love with the first-person shooter game Call of Duty. Brack, a senior sociology major, now serves as captain of the Call of Duty team and head of competitive operations for Ole Miss Esports, a student organization for competitive and casual gamers. Brack's team lost to Humber College in the Collegiate Call of Duty League National Championship last year and will compete as a part of the second annual Esports Egg Bowl this Saturday at Mississippi State. Forty five Ole Miss students will compete against MSU in seven different video games for the grand prize trophy. Ole Miss lost last year's event 5-2. Brack said that last year's Esports Egg Bowl was the most fun competitive gaming event he had ever been a part of, which made the loss sting even more. |
| 'This Game Is My Life' Thousands gathered in Philadelphia for Overwatch League Grand Finals, an e-sports tournament | |
 | Jenna Papagni stood amid a crowd of hundreds outside the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday. She was at the Philadelphia arena for the Overwatch League Grand Finals, an annual e-sports tournament, and she came dressed for battle. "This game is my life," said Ms. Papagni, a 20-year-old from Newark who was dressed as D.Va, an Overwatch character who fights in a mechanical exoskeleton. The league is modeled after traditional sports, with teams in 20 cities on three continents competing in a seven-month season that was drawing to its conclusion. Like many of the 12,000 fans who converged at the sold-out tournament to see the San Francisco Shock take on the Vancouver Titans, Ms. Papagni was drawn to the game because of its inclusionary nature and ease of entry. As more fans flock to professional e-sports leagues -- including ones for blockbuster games like Call of Duty and League of Legends -- global revenue for the e-sports industry is expected to surpass $1 billion this year, up 27 percent from last year, according to a report from Newzoo, a market intelligence firm. To sustain that growth, said Jurre Pannekeet, a senior market analyst at Newzoo, game publishers must keep their fans engaged. For Overwatch fans, the devotion runs deep. |
| Jackson State University to begin selling beer at home football games | |
| Jackson State University will begin selling beer at home football games starting October 5th. Anybody 21 years of age and older, with their ID will be able to buy beer at several different locations around the stadium. According to JSU Athletics, beer will be sold until the end of the third quarter of each home game. Another fun event coming to Jackson State University football games include "Halftime Fun". This is an event where two randomly selected JSU students will compete in a $500 game for education during halftime. Capital City Beverages and MillerCoors will present $500 in tuition assistance to the winner. |
| California will allow college athletes to profit from their likeness; what will Louisiana do? | |
 | When California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday that allowed California college athletes to earn money by using their names, images and likenesses, he said that his state's action would "initiate dozens of other states to introduce similar legislation." Specifically, college athletes in California will be able to hire agents licensed by the state in order to seek out ways to make a profit off their names, images and likeness. Where is the Louisiana state government in this conversation? A spokesperson for Gov. John Bel Edwards' office said amateur athlete compensation is not a conversation that has come up in Louisiana policy, and several legislators say that's because the debate has only truly picked up within the past five years. "I think it's something that definitely warrants a discussion," said Sen. Rick Ward, R-Port Allen, "I just think there's so many factors that play into it. I would find it hard for us to start passing legislation on something prior to the NCAA putting some framework together." |
| Tennessee football mourns death of Judy Jackson, a team 'mom' who made history as recruiter | |
 | Judy Jackson, a longtime University of Tennessee staff member who was known as a team "mom" for Vols football players has died. Jackson worked for Tennessee's athletic department for nearly 20 years. She became the first woman in Tennessee football history to serve as an on-the-road recruiter of football prospects for then-coach Phillip Fulmer. "Judy Jackson was an amazing woman, a dear friend, and a very important part of our Tennessee Football family from 1992 to 2009," Fulmer, who is now Tennessee's athletic director, said in a statement on Tuesday. Fulmer tapped Jackson to fill in as a recruiter in January 1998, weeks before national signing day, after one of UT's assistants left for a new job. "My first reaction was like, 'Excuse me? Do what?' " Jackson, a Chicago native who graduated from UT, told the News Sentinel for a 1998 story. "As I thought about it, it sounded like something I'd be interested in. I said, 'Whatever you need me to do, I'm there to do it.'" |
| Tennessee football: Jeremy Pruitt condemns Jeremy Banks' conduct to cops | |
 | Tennessee linebacker Jeremy Banks apologized Tuesday and Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt condemned how Banks interacted with university police after video showed Banks repeatedly using profanity after he was arrested last month on an outstanding traffic warrant. At times, Banks was polite and complimentary of the officers. During the ride to the jail, he said he'd "never met no police officers as nice as y'all." But Banks also challenged the officers and repeatedly used profanities. "What would you do without that badge, though? That's all I want to know," Banks asked an officer. "Y'all wouldn't want to see me without that badge," he added. During Banks' first phone call to Pruitt, he handed the phone to an officer, who explained the situation to the second-year Tennessee coach. Pruitt told the officer he "thought (Banks) had paid the ticket" and asked the officer, "Why do you have to arrest him? Just because he has a warrant?" The officer explained he was legally obligated to arrest Banks because of the warrant. |
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