“Out of the mouths of babes” is the beginning phrase of a New Testament scripture often paraphrased to highlight poignant words uttered by the youth. During a recent visit to Mississippi Delta Community College, one of President Tyrone Jackson’s nephews asked, “Uncle Tyrone, is that y’all’s football stadium? Our high school practice field is bigger than that.”
“The kid was just old enough to be a smart butt,” said MDCC athletic director, Jason Conner, at the Indianola Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday. “But it got me to thinking that we’ve nickel and dimed our way and duct taped here and there for far too long and need to bring our facilities up to the level where other community colleges are.”
Conner said that updated facilities help with recruitment and retention and deepen the sense of pride that already exists within Trojan athletics. After a little more than a year on the job, the new AD would not only like to get the Trojans a new stadium, but also address flooding in the outfield of the baseball stadium, losing good coaches to four-year universities, and continue dealing with the transient nature of being a community college athlete. “We just lost our softball coach to Delta State, and she was phenomenal, and we were starting to see the turnaround in our softball program. Her husband was also a coach and that was a package deal. So, we lost both of them.” Conner said. “I’ve coached and worked at four-year universities and when I was recruiting for four-year universities, we used to always tell kids if you’re good enough to play at a four-year university, then there’s no need to go to a junior college. Now, my coaches and I are telling student athletes to come to junior college where they can take advantage of the Phi Theta Kappa program where they can earn large sums of money that can be applied towards a four-year degree for a 3.5 or higher GPA.”
Building a football stadium, putting lights and a quarter million dollars’ worth of dirt on the baseball field and possibly adding women’s soccer to the MDCC slate of athletic programs obviously takes some serious dollars. And Conner is shooting for the moon in his attempt to bring resources to campus. He has made phone calls and sent emails to the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Shaquille O’Neal, Deion Sanders, Tony Dungy, the Manning family, and others. “I know it sounds like a pipe dream, emailing and calling people who I don’t know and who don’t know me,” he said. “But I’m just foolish enough to believe that someone will listen to me and help our school.”
Connor went on to say that he is excited about the MDCC football team which had its fist winning season in more than a decade and a half and named Tavares Johnson head coach last spring. And despite having outdated facilities for years, it hasn’t stopped Trojan athletics from competing at a high level. The school can boast a national championship in football, 12 championships in baseball and a women’s basketball team that has two consecutive second round playoff appearances.
