Latest / Johnny's World / Episode 13-Sid Salter

Transcript

Episode 13-Sid Salter · Johnny's World

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we are live here on the Johnny's World Podcast.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Johnny, and there's my host, BW.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today, BW?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Doing good.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: How about you, Johnny?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have a special guest today, Mr.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sid Salter.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: He is the Chief Communications Officer and Director of Public Affairs on campus at Mississippi State University.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today, Sid?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing very well.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Good to be with you.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for joining us.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we we kind of want to know your story, Sid.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: We we we uh we'd love to hear how you ended up in Starbucks and on campus at Mississippi State, and and just tell us how that how that came to be.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, I was a student here in the late 70s.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the second uh generation of my family to attend Mississippi State.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: My father was here in the late 30s, my mother uh in the 50s, and uh so uh grew up a Mississippi State uh person.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when I was a senior in high school, I won the uh John C.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Stennis Scholarship in Political Science.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was one of the first uh students to have that designation, and of course, it uh it really was a help to uh to me and to my family.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: I had a twin sister who was also attending college, and so the expense of two kids in school, the scholarship was just really a guide send to us, and uh so uh came came here and uh uh you know followed in my parents' footsteps uh here.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh during my uh time here, I uh became a writer for the Reflector, the student newspaper, uh, and I found that I really enjoyed that.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: I uh in my junior year I got a job to start with daily news uh covering uh sports.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh did that for about a year.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I had several jobs uh going through school.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was the night clerk in a convenience store.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I was uh Thursday, Friday, Saturday night uh um beer tender bouncer at one of the crossroads beer joints out there, uh Lin Lou's for old guys.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh but you know nothing really uh held my interest like journalism.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh I've always been grateful to uh Henry Meyer, who uh his family was affiliated with a uh Startville newspaper weekly that was a predecessor of the Startville Daily News uh for giving me that opportunity.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then I uh I went from uh Startville to my hometown of Philadelphia uh with the Neshoba Democrat, and then over the years uh and a pretty quick succession from the Neshoba Democrat, I went to the Boliver Commercial uh Daily Newspaper in Cleveland.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then from there uh I went to Forest to the Scott County Times, where uh at 24 I became the youngest uh newspaper publisher in the state.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh that was uh that was a tremendous experience.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh my wife and I uh married in 82, moved to Forest in 83, uh had our uh only child in 86.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh during that period of time, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis uh and really had a bad case of it, and it uh it uh took her life uh years later, but she spent uh a number of years uh first wheelchair bound and then bed bound uh before her death in 2005.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so during that time uh the uh the times uh grew and uh we had a sort of offer we couldn't refuse to sell it uh about uh 1998 to Wyatt Emerich and the Emerich newspaper group.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I went to the Claring Ledger from uh actually about night it was about 2000 it was, uh went from the Scott County Times to the Claring Ledger, and I was the prospective editor and uh columnist for the Claring Ledger for about a decade, uh mostly covering uh state government.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know wrote about a lot of different uh things uh over that period of time.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I started writing a column while I was at Forest.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um actually started writing a column while I was a student at the state.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I've been doing it uh you know 40 years now, uh, and met a lot of interesting people through that.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so uh late in my journalism career, uh I had an opportunity to do a statewide talk radio show on Super Talk that was the afternoon drive time uh show.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I enjoyed that a great deal, met a lot of uh different uh but equally interesting people through that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um traveled around the state uh a lot with that, uh good experience.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um and of course, also during that time I I did about 10 years of television commentary for WTOK, uh the ABC affiliate in Meridian.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So over my career in journalism, I I did uh daily and weekly newspapers, I did uh television.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I started in radio when I was 14 years old in Philadelphia.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and of course, um uh through running a weekly newspaper, I had a print shop of sheep fed and web printing.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we printed uh other newspapers, we also printed uh envelopes and letterhead and things of that nature.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a very broad exposure to communications, uh uh gathering and dissemination of news, and then the production uh parts of it, and then worked in broadcast enough to uh I guess to be dangerous.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh an opportunity uh opened here at Mississippi State, and uh it was home, my alma mater, uh the town I wanted to live in, uh my parents uh in Philadelphia had passed away, my dad in '89 and my mother in 2005.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh by the time 2011 rolled around, uh you know, Philadelphia uh was home, uh but there was no one to go home to.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: So when that opportunity in Starkwell came open, uh I it it was uh it was a wonderful place to spend this uh time in my life.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh my wife and I came.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's been we we've been here a little over 10 years, uh been affiliated with a university, and right now I I run the Office of Public Affairs, which includes uh our uh University Television Center, and we have a we have a cable channel called MSTV.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have a campus radio station, WMSV, uh, and I'm responsible for that.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I I work with uh a group of very talented, uh mostly young uh people uh who make all of those operations go.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have some older, more experienced folks, uh Jackie Harrington, uh our branding manager Harriet Laird, who's our associate director in public affairs, but most of our staff are young people and they've they've got a lot of talent.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh and we do social media, we do photography, we do graphic design, uh, messaging, uh, we uh write, uh storyboard, produce uh video, audio assets.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh every day is different, and our our job is to advance Mississippi State University.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and if if you really believe in the product that you're selling, it never feels a lot like work.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I have to say this is uh this has been a great uh experience for me, and I hope it uh hope it continues for a few years.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that's neat.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I would say y'all are doing a pretty good job because my my daughter, who is eight, um, has only been to a handful of Mississippi State events in her lifetime, but but every time she goes, she just gets a little bit more, you know, becomes a little bit more of a fan and wants to wear my Mississippi State hats to school and wants to get the shirts.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so the message is getting through to everybody, it sounds like well, we hope so.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it seems if we can get young people on the campus and particularly uh at sporting events that uh they kind of feel part of the experience.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the cowbell, bully, uh, all of those aspects uh are appealing to uh to children, I think.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, we feel like the family atmosphere here makes a difference.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: We've had six years, uh six consecutive years of enrollment growth.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're just under 23,000 students.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: When I was uh here in the late 70s, we were at about 9,000 uh students.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: So phenomenal amount of growth uh on the campus of Mississippi State, phenomenal amount of growth in terms of the city of Starkwell, the uh opportunity for uh shopping, for dining, uh, for uh living arrangements, all that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's it's a great quality of life, great town to live in.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we feel like our students uh strike a good balance between uh doing the work that they've got to do in the classroom to be successful, but also having and enjoying uh a good college experience and a good life.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we we uh we want you to keep bringing your daughter.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: We will.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get my son on board next.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: So good.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um you're talking about that, it yeah, uh you are doing such a great job with the commercials that you see on TV.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's really neat to see y'all get the word out to people because you can obviously it's working with the increase in enrollment and the publicity that y'all are getting out.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about I see y'all uh I see all the time uh uh We Ring True Everywhere.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was that you?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: How did that come about?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and who thought of that?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that do?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh that was the product of uh our office, uh Checky Harrington, uh uh Aaron Brown, uh Harriet Laird.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I had a role in it.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we were getting ready to go to the Orange Bowl when uh Dak was our quarterback, and uh we wanted to roll out a uh a new commercial with a new uh tagline because we were gonna get about 11 million eyeballs uh on us while we were uh down in South Florida playing in that game.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we rushed up the production of that We Ring True Spot uh so that we could debut it during the Orange Bowl.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the fans liked it.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and the way we can tell that uh slogans like that, uh whether or not they're successful or not, do the vendors who sell uh shirts and other products do they uh adopt that and license that for their products?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, uh the marketplace usually gives you an answer, and the marketplace liked it.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we've continued it over this period of growth.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we're to we're to point right now where we're looking at at uh perhaps a second uh wave of growth, and we may tweak it, we may not, uh so far so good uh with that, but uh in marketing you're always uh evolving or you're not you're not making any progress.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll study that this year.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: We're actually uh uh beginning uh a new relationship with some uh folks that are gonna help us uh with our future direction.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll look we look forward to that, but I wouldn't look for the cowbell to go any place anytime soon.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I used to like um a couple years back the uh the Mississippi state of mind used to see some of that before the football games.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Was that y'all, or was that more the football program that did that?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't really remember that being a part of our athletic program or the university.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: I do think the uh uh Mississippi Department of Tourism used that a great deal, and sometimes their commercials run during our event, so it very well may have been seen uh there.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, you know, Mississippi's overall uh reputation uh in the eyes of the nation has grown and changed.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm I'm 62 years old, and uh I remember uh what the 60s, early 70s was like in Mississippi, and uh our state didn't always get the best uh rep uh nationally, but I I think uh I think we've had a lot of change here, and it's change that the rest of the nation uh has noticed.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's been positive change, and I think the fact that we have done a good job with thorny uh issues uh like race, certainly we haven't solved those issues, and certainly we've got miles to go.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: But we've made a lot of progress in race.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing that I tell people uh in other parts of the country uh with almost 40% of the population of Mississippi being uh African American, uh certainly they're going to be uh more uh difficult uh issues of race to confront in our state because uh we simply have more African American citizens and it's a it's a broader, more important discussion.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm proud of how Mississippi State has dealt with those issues.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm proud of how the state of Mississippi has dealt with them.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's always going to be uh disagreement over things like the state flag.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have ancestors who uh fought for both sides uh in the Civil War, but uh I, you know, and speaking personally, not for the institution, but personally uh I was pleased to see the change in the state flag.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh I think we have a flag now that everyone can support.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I don't think that you have to uh forget about the past to advance to the future, but I do think we needed to be able to advance to the future behind a symbol that everyone can embrace.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm I'm confident uh moving forward.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've uh my wife and I are blessed.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my first wife passed away, as I said, uh uh back in 2005.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I was fortunate, uh, and and you know, I I've got a face for radio, but I was fortunate to find a uh lovely uh woman who uh has spent the rest of my life with me.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and between us we have uh soon to be nine grandchildren.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I have a lot of confidence about the future uh for our grandchildren in Mississippi because I think we're making some moves that are appropriate to help us move forward.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll sit uh I have a book that's sitting on my shelf with uh that has your name on it, with uh Jack Crystal.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any good stories from Jack and how that came to be?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, almost uh the first week that I was uh working for the university, I had a conversation with uh Dr.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Keenum, Dr.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Keenum, our president, and with our athletic director at the time, Scott Strickland.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Jack Crystal's uh health was beginning to fail.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: He uh he had kidney disease and was uh about to have to start dialysis, and that was kind of the beginning of the end of his 58-year uh career as the broadcaster of Mississippi State Athletics.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so they they asked if I uh could write a uh book about Jack.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: And having never written a book, I said, sure, I can do it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I spent the next six months, sort of day and night, uh, working on that book.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: I would go up on Fridays and uh interview Jack uh at his kitchen table in Tupelo, and uh you know we were able to put together the story of his life.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think everybody felt like they knew Jack from his uh many, many years, six decades behind the microphone, but uh Jack uh was the son of uh a uh Russian and Lithuanian uh uh set of immigrants.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: His his parents came here, uh both uh came to America to escape persecution uh during the run-up to the First and Second World War.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh his mom was smuggled out of uh Belarus uh through the port of Hamburg on a cattle boat to Ellis Island in New York.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and his dad uh came out of uh near uh uh Vilnius, Lithuania, uh again through Ellis Island.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: So uh the son of immigrants, they they bounced around, settled uh uh around uh Memphis, but uh more to the Friars Point, uh, Clarksdale area.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh of course Jack's father uh ended up with tuberculosis, and he would go out west for long periods of time uh to the National Jewish Hospital in Denver to seek treatment for tuberculosis.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: His mother was essentially a single mother most of that time.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: She was a seamstress at the old goldsmith's department store in Memphis.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I traced Jack's ancestry back to uh Belarus and Russia and Lithuania, and then came forward and told his story with one of six children, uh grew up very poor in a neighborhood of Memphis called the Pinks near the river.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and he would be on the stoop of the house that uh they lived in, and he would bounce the ball off the uh bricks, and he would uh invent a radio broadcast.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: He listened to sort of golden age radio broadcasters do baseball, and as a little boy, uh younger than six, he would imitate them and he would make up a game.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: And Jack, uh his sister said that Jack could.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Tell uh in his broadcast what kind of hit the player got based on the sound that the ball made coming off the bricks.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh that served Jack well uh when he actually got into radio.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he served his country uh in the U.S.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Army Air Corps during World War II, but after the war, he uh used the GI Bill to go to the University of Minnesota.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: He took every broadcasting course they offered, then dropped out and took a job in the radio uh industry, broadcasting Cotton States League Baseball.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: So he was going to places like Clarksdale and Andalusia, Alabama, and places like that, broadcasting uh minor league baseball.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh he he saw a lot of great baseball players on the way up to the majors, uh, but he built a reputation as a good broadcaster.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, he did games back in the day when they would take ticker tape and basically read uh the ticker tape and do sound effects, and the the broadcast of the game would be a few minutes behind the actual game.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you drawing on what he did as a child with the rubber ball, he would thump his wallet or thump an aspirin tin.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: He'd make the sound effects necessary to do that broadcast off the ticker tank.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, he he just became uh one of the best, uh for my money, the best play-by-play uh athletic uh broadcast announcers uh anywhere in the country.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: And nobody uh nobody served one institution longer than Jack did.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: 58 years of Mississippi State football, 53 years of Mississippi State basketball, um, and just a gentleman of the first uh order.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I can't tell you uh how much I enjoyed the time I spent with him and what an honor it was to tell uh his story.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll tell you, if if you've got that book, uh John, you can uh you can look at uh the forward to that book was written by John Grisham, who was probably a bigger fan of Jack Crystal than I am.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so uh my contributions were pretty small, but between Jack Crystal's name on the book and John Grisham's name on the book, we were able to sell about 14,000 copies of the book.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: The average book in America sells about 3,000 copies.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: The proceeds of that book went to fund the uh Jacob S.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: Jack Crystal Scholarship uh for uh budding sports journalists.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so Jack's contributions to Mississippi Young People continue to this day.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, years after his death, uh he and his wife Mavis had also funded uh scholarships uh to benefit uh young people.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, Jack Crystal to me is the gold standard of uh college sports broadcasters, and it was one of the great honors of my life to be able to help tell his story.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: He did, he did such a great job.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Job with it.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I always loved this his uh his sense of humor, you know, on the broadcast and everything.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Was he like that in person too?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Was he real quick-witted when you talked to him and everything?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Jack was incredibly uh quick-witted.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I'll I'll illustrate this way you know, Jack smoked for a long time, and he smoked past the the point of uh kind of no return.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: When he died, he had kidney disease and he had lung cancer.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he uh he was pretty stoic about it, but uh as society's uh views of smoking changed, it became more difficult for Jack to continue that habit.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh even Mississippi State people, people who loved him, if they saw him smoking in public, they would they would engage about it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: And uh one of my one of my favorite stories about Jack was uh he he was smoking in the hallway of uh uh one of the gyms, and a Mississippi State fan, a little lady uh who had a little Mississippi Maroon White Mississippi State vest on, she walked up to him and she said, Mr.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Crystal, you're not smoking, are you?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Yes, ma'am, I am.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh she said, Well, you know, that's that's a terrible example to set for young people.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: He said, he said, yes, ma'am, I know it is.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bad habit.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've been doing it a long time, real difficult to quit, but I I understand.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, you need to stop.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: You need to stop smoking.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not good.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, he said, yes, ma'am, you're right.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then she came back one more time, you know, kind of wagging her finger at him, and he said, as only Jack can, he said, he said, ma'am, did I ever tell you that my mother lived to be over 90 years old?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, no, you you you didn't.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, yep.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a sister who's 92, and a brother who made it to 91.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: And do you know why longevity runs in my family?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the lady said, Well, no, I don't.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Because all of us learned at an early age to mind our own damn business.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so, um, so you know, that that kind of illustrates uh Jack.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: He he was capable of a quick temper as well as a quick wit.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but people loved him, and I think part of the reason the book was successful was not so much the quality of the book, but people wanted a chance to embrace Jack, to thank him, to let him take kind of a victory lap at his retirement.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't tell you the number of grown men my age and older who walked up and uh were reduced to tears trying to tell Jack what he had meant to them over the course of their lives.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I uh wrote in the book was that Jack he saw his audience as the mechanic working on a car on Saturday who couldn't get off of work to go to the game, or the nurse working you know, second or third shift at a hospital who couldn't get off to go to the game.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: He he did his uh broadcast painting that picture on radio in the in the theater of the mine uh to try to give those people who couldn't attend the games an opportunity to share in the experience.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think uh one of the things when when we were on the book tour going around the state, one of the biggest signings we had was in Oxford, Mississippi, and the first person through the door there was David Kellum, the broadcaster for the Elvis Rebels.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: And people all over the state, whether they were bulldogs or rebels or golden eagles, they loved and respected Jack because he he was fair about how he called the game.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: He was professional, uh, and he never hesitated to praise a kid no matter who he was playing for, if he did a good job.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's that's part of the relationship that the people in Mississippi had.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I found out that the vast majority of people had no idea that Jack was Jewish, and they also didn't know that he was a lay rabbi in his synagogue in Tupela.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh that heritage, Jack was very proud of it.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he was uh he he was someone who was a leader in his church, a leader in his community, uh, in addition to what he did for Mississippi State.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, Jack held down a regular job the whole time he was broadcasting for Mississippi State.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: He he sold uh advertising for radio stations in Tupelo, television stations in Tupelo.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but but he's he saw himself as a working guy, uh raised those two daughters, uh just a prince, just a prince of the guy, really.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, where can everybody find the book?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody's interested in getting it, what's the best place to get it where it would go directly to the fund there?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the the first edition sold out.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's a second edition through University Press in Mississippi, and it's in most of the uh better bookstores uh in uh uh in the Tupelo uh area.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the course the bookstore uh gumtree there it reads.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then uh here in Starkville, there are copies at the Lodge, there are copies at Campus Bookmart, uh Barnes and Noble here on campus.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I mean we we uh place the books from uh the Gulf Coast to Memphis and you know from Vicksburg to Tuscaloosa, so basically all over the state of Mississippi, uh every store that sells University Press of Mississippi products.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh as I said, we did uh we we did 14,000 on the first edition, and I think about um 2800 so far of the second edition.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's kind of flattened out now because uh as Jack's fans get older, unfortunately, they're they're leaving us as well.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so uh but but the proceeds of the book still go to the scholarship.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have a chance to uh buy one of the books and uh learn about an interesting Mississippian, uh I'm proud of the fact that it's in the the book is in the National Jewish uh museum.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know that that would have pleased Jack.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: That happened after his death, but that that would have pleased him.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: They they wrote and asked for a copy, and we we were able to find uh one of the first editions that had an audio CD in it that uh we were able to share with them so that uh future generations can continue to uh hear his story.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well well, Jack uh he he is he was one of the kind, and I mean it takes like a call dial his whole life.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that just hearing that voice takes you back to your childhood.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's just uh it's great that you were able to do that and keep it keeping the legacy alive, kind of like what you said.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of a lot of Jack's older fans are dying off, but uh but younger or younger fans by reading that book will will understand what an impact he was to not only Mississippi State but broadcasting in general.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, he he was a living legend.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: So so uh we applaud you with that book.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's awesome.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh hopefully more people can still get out there.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: What a great cause it's going to.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you're right.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know he would be proud.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's it, it was a privilege.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh you did such a great job, Sid.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I remember um it's funny where I'm interview interviewing you.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one time you interviewed me.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember that.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: We uh at the Batson Children's Hospital.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I worked for many years uh helping promote uh the children's hospital there, doing fundraisers and everything.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember coming on the radio show uh one time and and getting to talk about the hospital and stuff.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's pretty neat how we kind of come full circle full circle here.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you uh we we commend you on all your hard work that you do.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just uh you're a great Mississippian, just getting the word out and promote promoting uh promoting Mississippi State the way you do.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just uh just an honor to know you.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's cool that what we're doing with our sunglasses and and all that sort of stuff.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to trying to promote promote the Mississippi brand as well by naming the the glasses after different towns in Mississippi and and at the same time uh raising money for a cause near and dear to me because I suffer from CF.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so yeah, it's just it's really good to to see see Mississippi as a whole and uh and help help help out in the same time and and uh feel like you you you're appropriate that we we we commend you on it.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you're you're very kind.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I didn't know when we were setting this up uh about your connection to uh CF, but uh that's been a cause uh back to my uh high school days uh when I was an assistant scout master.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there was a kid in my troop that struggled with CF.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you get a chance to see what those uh children and young people have to go through.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's difficult sometimes, just brutal, uh, how hard they have to fight to survive.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I admire the work you're doing.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: And as I told you, uh uh meeting a 40-year-old uh uh not just living but thriving CF patient is is quite an honor.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: So uh keep on keeping on.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we really appreciate you coming on, Sid.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and just uh we always say this about John Clark is uh one of his favorite actors is Matthew McConaughey, and and one of his things is just keep living.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh John Clark is the definition of just keep living.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we wish Matthew McConaughey would let us have that slogan for ours, but for now we'll we'll just keep using it like we are.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So but uh that should be good though.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: We we don't I don't think I have anything else.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be hard to follow up those stories.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we just like I said earlier, just really appreciate you coming on and hope everybody, I think everybody's gonna really enjoy this.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I wish you the best, and it was my pleasure to be with you today.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, sir.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: All right, Sid.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.