University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Southern Miss M-Club Hall of Fame
Jimmie McDowell
- Induction:
- 1995
If there ever was an unsung hero in college athletics, it would have to be the sports information director. Long before the fans, coaches and players arrive for the contest and long after they have all gone home the sports information director is hard at work many times cramped up in a little office and with little help.
Jimmie McDowell started his sports writing career at the age of 13 writing a weekly column for his hometown Brookhaven, Mississippi paper. And it seemed that sports and the newspaper business was always in his blood, his father was a former professional baseball players and he was the great grandson of Mississippi’s first woman editor.
Jimmie came to the university in the summer of 1951 to become the Director of Public Relations and athletic publicity, after serving for two years as the assistant sports editor of the Jackson Daily News for two years and sports editor at the Meridian Star. He remained at Southern Miss until 1954.
His infectious personality, friendliness and colorful and entertaining writing style quickly earned the University of Southern Mississippi new friends and brought old friends back into the fold.
“Mississippi Red” as he was known was a dreamer and he could think of no reason that Southern Miss should not be written and talked about in the same way as the Alabama’s, Georgia’s and Notre Dame’s of the world. And quickly made contact with the leading sportswriters and sportscasters of the era and soon the name of Mississippi Southern was known in more places than just South Mississippi.
With great coaches like Thad “Pie” Vann in football and Lee Floyd in basketball, McDowell had a hand in helping our school begin its long ride to the success it enjoys today.
McDowell served as sports editor of five newspapers in his career and his skills and abilities with the typewriter eventually led him to a job that seemed perfect for him, working for the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, writing the Foundation’s syndicated football columns with the legendary coach Colonel Earl (Red) Blaik. He became the Foundation’s executive director in 1970 and remained in that position until stepping down a couple of years ago. Since leaving the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame McDowell has returned to Mississippi where he created the All-American Football Foundation to honor the “Unsung college football players”.
There is no doubt that Jimmie McDowell is one of the unsung heroes of Southern Miss athletics and now as you read of the Golden Eagles in USA Today, Sports Illustrated or see them playing on national or regional television think back to the early days in Hattiesburg and the men like Jimmie McDowell that wrote the school’s name into the national limelight
Jimmie McDowell started his sports writing career at the age of 13 writing a weekly column for his hometown Brookhaven, Mississippi paper. And it seemed that sports and the newspaper business was always in his blood, his father was a former professional baseball players and he was the great grandson of Mississippi’s first woman editor.
Jimmie came to the university in the summer of 1951 to become the Director of Public Relations and athletic publicity, after serving for two years as the assistant sports editor of the Jackson Daily News for two years and sports editor at the Meridian Star. He remained at Southern Miss until 1954.
His infectious personality, friendliness and colorful and entertaining writing style quickly earned the University of Southern Mississippi new friends and brought old friends back into the fold.
“Mississippi Red” as he was known was a dreamer and he could think of no reason that Southern Miss should not be written and talked about in the same way as the Alabama’s, Georgia’s and Notre Dame’s of the world. And quickly made contact with the leading sportswriters and sportscasters of the era and soon the name of Mississippi Southern was known in more places than just South Mississippi.
With great coaches like Thad “Pie” Vann in football and Lee Floyd in basketball, McDowell had a hand in helping our school begin its long ride to the success it enjoys today.
McDowell served as sports editor of five newspapers in his career and his skills and abilities with the typewriter eventually led him to a job that seemed perfect for him, working for the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, writing the Foundation’s syndicated football columns with the legendary coach Colonel Earl (Red) Blaik. He became the Foundation’s executive director in 1970 and remained in that position until stepping down a couple of years ago. Since leaving the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame McDowell has returned to Mississippi where he created the All-American Football Foundation to honor the “Unsung college football players”.
There is no doubt that Jimmie McDowell is one of the unsung heroes of Southern Miss athletics and now as you read of the Golden Eagles in USA Today, Sports Illustrated or see them playing on national or regional television think back to the early days in Hattiesburg and the men like Jimmie McDowell that wrote the school’s name into the national limelight
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