Rick Cleveland on 'Mississippi's Greatest Athletes'

With a passion for Mississippi sports and a career that includes more than four decades as a sports writer (most of those with The Clarion-Ledger) and now as executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, Rick Cleveland has produced a definitive volume on the state's most celebrated sportsmen — and women.

"Mississippi's Greatest Athletes" showcases the state's sports heritage going back at least a century, and chronicles the accomplishments of record setters on every sports field you'd expect — and then some — along with the contributions of noted sports writers and announcers as well.

The coffee table book, with a foreword by Archie Manning, features stories on every Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer — and there's more than 300 of them — rich with pertinent stats and colorful stories. It's filled with striking photographs, and even includes a section on sure-to-be "future Hall of Famers."

Cleveland, a product of Hattiesburg Public Schools and the University of Southern Mississippi, describes his own sports career: "As an athlete, I was a catcher who couldn't hit a curve, a point guard who was too slow and a golfer who could not — and still can't — putt."

Fortunately, writing about other athletes proved to be his passion, and his career as a sports writer began when he was a teenager, covering games for The Hattiesburg American. Rick Cleveland's own father, Ace Cleveland, is a member of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in 1998 for his own achievements as a sports writer and publicist.

Cleveland and his wife Liz live in Fondren and are the parents of son Tyler, a journalist; and daughter Annie, a stage actress.

"Mississippi's Greatest Athletes" was published by Neil White at The Nautilus Publishing Co. in Oxford, who had long shared Cleveland's enthusiasm for a project that would highlight the state's sports heroes.

Cleveland will sign copies of "Mississippi's Greatest Athletes" at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12 at Lemuria Books in Jackson.

When and how did you get the idea to create "Mississippi's Greatest Athletes?"

This has been something on my to-do list since I became executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in April of 2012. Neil White, the great writer and book publisher, had virtually the same idea. We joined forces and the result is this book.

How did you research this book, and how long did the project take?

(Publisher) Neil (White) took care of the photo end of it via Getty Images and borrowing from our archives. There are some incredible photos in there, especially the one of Charlie Conerly throwing a Tim Tebow-like jump pass. We enlisted Oxford-based Jeff Roberson, the reporter/editor who covers Ole Miss for FoxSportsNet, for some of the research on the earlier Hall of Famers. Much of the information comes from our archives at the museum. For the past year I have worked early mornings, before my real job, for most of the writing.

What are the plans for the proceeds from this book?

The museum has never accepted a penny of tax money for operations. These proceeds will go into our operating budget and we have many new exhibits on the drawing boards.

In the book, you write about the remarkable athletic talent Mississippi has produced over more than a century, and you attribute much of it to our passion for our sports and our sports heroes, and the fact that "we take our sports, our rivalries seriously. They are a huge part of our culture." Please elaborate.

The high school sports teams are at the center of small-town culture in Mississippi, which is a state of mostly small towns. These people are passionate about their sports. Archie Manning says it best in his foreword: "...And when you grow up in a state with such an incredible athletic heritage, you desperately want to be part of it."

The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1961, but you state that it had no "real home" until the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum opened in 1996. Until then, fading plaques, hung in the Mississippi Coliseum, were the extent of the tribute paid to the state's top athletes. Please explain your role (and that of others) in the Museum's creation, and how it has elevated the state's athletic heritage.

I was out at the Coliseum to cover a basketball game and noticed how the plaques were faded, dusty and scratched. It seemed a terrible way to "celebrate" our sports heroes. Instead of writing about the basketball, I proposed a new museum in the next day's column. Several sports-minded civic leaders took the idea and ran with it. Jim Buck Ross made it happen more than anyone else, which is explained in the book.

What is the criteria for Mississippi athletes to be selected for the Hall of Fame? Is there a limit to the number of inductees each year?

We induct six a year. They must be a Mississippian or have played or coached a significant part of their athletic career in Mississippi.

The book is really a historical tribute to sports and athletes in Mississippi! What do you want readers take away from it?

That this state is second to none when it comes to producing world-class athletes. Along with some of the world's greatest authors, musicians and entertainers, we have produced many of the planet's greatest athletes.

As a long-time sports writer, what do you make of this year's college football season in Mississippi, with Mississippi State and Ole Miss in the national rankings?

Well, I pinch myself every day. This football season is unprecedented. I don't want it to end.

"Mississippi's Greatest Athletes"

By Rick Cleveland

Nautilus Publishing Co.

140 pages, $38