Jackson Jambalaya

 It's Egg Bowl week and that means the University Men from Oxford will square off against the Farmer Boys of Starkville on national tv Friday.  Although University fans might have needed a drink over the last week, their football coach gave his team some booze during halftime of the 1907 game in Jackson. 

The story of the "Whiskey Game" is plastered all over the internet yet the Clarion Ledger and Jackson Daily News accounts give no mention to University Coach Frank Mason bringing booze to his players on the bench.   

As the legend goes, Harmon poured a good bit of booze into a large coffee urn, giving them a healthy dose of liquid courage that was rather lacking in football talent.   

There were no tarps or fancy drainage system back then as a torrential downpour flooded the Fairgrounds, turning them into a sea of mud.   The Farmer Boys were heavily favored while the University Men were winless.  The newspaper accounts posted below tell the story of the game in rather entertaining fashion.  

The Clarion-Ledger account is hard to read so a transcription is included.  Posted below the Clarion-Ledger account is that of the Jackson Daily News, which provides much more information on the game. 

Clarion-Ledger, November 29, 1907 

UNIVERSITY WENT DOWN BEFORE THE FARMER BOYS
A Great Game of Football Was Played in Mud and Water, But Great Crowd of Wet Spectators Enjoyed the Fun.

A. & M. 16; University, 0.

Two or three thousand poeple witnessed the game of football between the University of Mississippi and the A&M College at the State Fairgrounds yesterday afternoon, and in spit of wind and weather, enjoyed the contest. 

The result of the more than one hour game was 16-0 in favor of the "Farmer Boys" and they appreciated their victory.  

So very inclement had been the weather that it was supposed the game would be called off.  Wherefore, hundreds of town folks who would have been present under more favorable auspices were conspicuously absent. 

Rain began to fall Wednesday evening, continued in a drizzling kid of way till near midnight when the winddown of the upper regions were thrown wide open, and the rain came down in torrents till late on the day for the big game.  

The grounds are naturally low, with no drainage whatsoever but in dry weather are well suited for the business of playing football.  During the past two or three days, the Fair management had been busy filling up low places, leveling off and improving the grounds as much as possible, but all to no avail so far as the conditions were concerned yesterday afternoon. 

The road and the walks from State Street to the ball grounds were about so bad and disagreeable as it is possible for roads to be, and those so fortunate as to have conveyances, private or public, were just about able to get along and that was all.  The foot passengers waded through mud and water over their shoetops and were a bedraggled sight when they reached the grandstand or the wire setting that surrounds the ball grounds. 

The players lined up for the first half about 2:30, all eager, apparently for the fray, and both sides confident of victory.  The betting, if any was indulged in, was at odds, the A&M boys being very decided favorites with those who had a little cash to risk on the battle that was to be played under such difficulties.  But the spectators seemed more interested in the conditions of he grounds and the brand of weather that was being furnished by an unkind clerk than were the sturdy youngsters who were to furnish the brawn and the muscle and take all the risk of broken bones and black eyes and death by strangulation in the pools of unknown and uncertain depths that were scattered all over the gridiron.  

The first half lasted 35 minutes and was fast and furious from the start to finish.  It was apparent that the A&M eleven was the better trained of the two, that it was heavier, that it was speedier, and stood the best chance of wining, but they were no fuller of grit and bulldog determination than their University opponents, who fought manfully across and beyond, back and forth over every yard line on the field and ins spite of predictions to the contrary succeeded in preventing a touchdown or more for the Farmer Boys, though they were not able to do anything for themselves. Time was finally called with the score 0 to 0, and both sides were interested and intent on the remainder of the game .

The University boys had really done better than was expected of them.  It was freely predicted that their opponents would make at least one touchdown during the first half and the spectators, or a great many of them were disappointed that such as not the result of the long and exciting struggle.  The A&M contingent managed to keep the ball in their territory most of the time, but at every effort to buck the center or run the ends, they were successfully tackled and stopped in their approach to the goal line but that was the best they could do.  

The first half was full of interest and furnished numerous opportunities for applause on the part of the friends and rooters for the team that advanced the ball a few yards at a time or came dangerously near to scoring but it not compare in furnishing cause for frenzied yelling and outbursts of applause with the second.  The contestants had been soused in the water up to their ears time and again and were wet and fighting and muddy. They threw discretion to the winds in the second round and took their cold baths as if they made them feel better . 

But it was the A&M game from the first to the last of the half, though any two or three occasions the University boys rescued the pigskin from dangerous proximity to the goal of their opponents, and forced them back over the forty and fifty yard lines from the five yard measurements .

Three goals and one touchdown were the result of this half and they were earned only after the hardest and the roughest kind of scrambles and close attention to the business of the game.  

The feature of the afternoon was the 70 yard run and goal made by Dent of the A&M team, though Grant of the same company made two or three runs that would have done credit to any ball player in the land and proved him worthy to wear the honors he has been given during the season, especially at Memphis last week, when he was declared the most phenomenal 130 pounds of football material ever seen in that city.  

 The result of the contest was about as expected, hence there was no hard feeling engendered, though the University boys got off the fields and to town as soon as possible to escape the ribbing and the cajoling and the shouting of the victors.  

It took the spectators an hour to get back to the business district of the city, so deep and so sticky was the mud.  Scores of conveyances were on hand, but they were inadequate, to haul the ladies up the hill under three or four trips each.  A great float, capable of holding forty to fifty men, was soon filled with college boys and they started to town but the team gave out, the harness broke, and the occupants were forced to disembark in the muddies and wettest section of the road. 

The Starkville boys had come to Jackson on a special train, one thousand strong, and they took the town.  Arrived at their headquarters at the Edwards House, they made the early hours of the night one long to be remembered.  Shortly after dark, they organized their processional and marched up and down Capitol Street, carrying aloft gaily and humorously decorated banners, transparencies, etc., telling of their victory and consigning their enemies to everlasting disgrace.  In the lead of the procession was a dummy University man, suspended by the neck from a gallows.  He had evidently been dead several hours and was went and bedraggled as were those for whom made and named.  

 There was no rowdyism at any stage of the game or afterwards but some of the players and the backers of the University team were sore over their defeat and very much inclined to lay the blame on their coach, a Harvard man.  On the other hand, the coach was "beefing" about the team, declaring it the hardest set he had ever tackled, that they changed players on him every day or two, and that he could not do anything with them.  Asked if his team was going to leave town last night, the coach said "Yes, the team is going North at 11 o'clock; I'm going in another direction and hope I will never see them again. 

Kingfish note: Posted below is the actual article.