I have committed a sin. One that, in the South, is barely forgivable. Even though I am a former season ticket holder to Ole Miss, my two boys have never been to an SEC football game. Now that they are eight and six and actually understand the game of football, we were out of excuses not to go. I had told my husband that this had to be the season where we introduce them to all things SEC football. Even if that meant we (gulp) went and visited my nephew at Mississippi State.
When Kenny Carson put on social media that he had extra tickets to an upcoming Ole Miss game, I immediately responded. My New York father-in-law would be visiting that weekend and he loves to go to football. The first time we ever took him to The Grove many years ago, he had commented that it couldn’t be much different from NFL tailgating. And yes, I willingly married into a Mets/Jets family, but that’s a story for another day.
Kenny immediately set us up with 5 tickets to go to the game. While I offered to pay him, he insisted he was gifted the tickets and needed seats filled. Since it was against Tulsa, I guess there wasn’t mass hysteria over getting into the game. However, we were still excited to go. We coordinated a location for a meeting to collect the tickets on game day.
As we waited for Kenny to arrive, I explained to my 8-year-old that Kenny was Vice Mayor for Iuka. He asked, “Will he have bodyguards when he comes to meet us?” I looked at my son as if he was on another planet, but then remembered how I told him about meeting Michael Bloomberg in New York City when he was mayor (and his entourage of security). So, I guess the bodyguard question is not so unexpected I suppose, but as Kenny explained to my son, all it takes is a cup of coffee and the gift of gab to be Vice Mayor. While Kenny was being humble about it, and without fully knowing what the day-to-day responsibilities are for the Vice Mayor of Iuka, I do know it takes an incredible amount of time and love for the town. And, nobody loves Iuka (and Ole Miss) more than Kenny.
When Kenny arrived, he began flipping pages in a notebook, which had a huge list of names, locations for pickup, and ticket allotments. When I asked him what he was doing with all the information, he explained that he had coordinated giving away 126 Ole Miss football tickets to the game. The list had details on where tickets were, how many were available, where they were located, and how he was going to get them to recipients. I kid you not, this would have been a full-time job for me trying to keep all of that organized. As I’ve spoken to other people about how Kenny coordinated this, it’s apparently nothing compared to the work he did when Ole Miss won College World Series in Omaha.
Kenny encouraged my sons to stay until the very end as the players would throw items into the stands. They took his advice and my oldest caught a used sweatband (still damp, mind you). Needless to say, that sweatband magically got lost as soon as we got home.
As I saw people tag Kenny on social media throughout the day thanking him for the experience, I could see how many memories he created for so many people that day. Iuka and Ole Miss are fortunate to have this super fan of both.