I don't think it would have made any difference. I would have been happy for the flag to be changed back then, but approximately zero of our problems have been caused by the flag. Now have our problems been caused by having a big population of people that were willing to dig in on the flag issue in 2000? Possibly a little? I think the people complaining that it was a bunch of out of state people stirring up controversy were largely correct if you looked at the voting numbers. But there is still the question of whether it was worth fighting over and whether that attitude that caused people to dig in also makes other changes that would be beneficial harder to accomplish politically.
It's a damn shame our state doesn't have...
- Thread starter Xenomorph
- Start date
Too much Pyramid confusion to not post this gem.
And Desoto has the Landers Center, and the Forum just across the way. So I'd rule it out. As much as some don't want to admit, DC is simply a part of Memphis.
So it's Jackson and the Coast. You know I don't know what happened to all that big 'entertainment' venue or whatever it was that was slated for Gulfport, but that makes me think an arena like that could maybe work down there, tied to the casinos or something.
Ultimately I still think the answer is Jackson.
Our current issues with not being able to host have nothing to do with the flag.
Can Jackson be saved? Of course it can be. The window is closing though.
Will it? It's up to the voters. They have to get fed up with what they are getting and where they are headed. If I were advising a campaign for Jackson leadership. There would be ICE everywhere.
Infrastructure
Crime
Education
Nothing gets discussed outside of these three items. You put incredible focus on those three things over 8 years, and forget about racism, the Zoo, and all the other crap, and the city turns around. Then you can discuss things like the One Lake project, an arena and making Jackson into a Birmingham.
The circus happening now in City Hall would be national news if it were the other side. The mayor vetoed a non-action and it went to the Supreme Court of this state. Every citizen in this state should be appalled and demand a special session to pass a law to allow recalls of mayors in cities over 50,000.
Will it? It's up to the voters. They have to get fed up with what they are getting and where they are headed. If I were advising a campaign for Jackson leadership. There would be ICE everywhere.
Infrastructure
Crime
Education
Nothing gets discussed outside of these three items. You put incredible focus on those three things over 8 years, and forget about racism, the Zoo, and all the other crap, and the city turns around. Then you can discuss things like the One Lake project, an arena and making Jackson into a Birmingham.
The circus happening now in City Hall would be national news if it were the other side. The mayor vetoed a non-action and it went to the Supreme Court of this state. Every citizen in this state should be appalled and demand a special session to pass a law to allow recalls of mayors in cities over 50,000.
I think the window is opening. When you hit rock bottom, that's when things actually change. Jackson is about there.
Haven't seen it mentioned (probably for good reason) but what does Tupelo use the Cadence Bank Arena for these days? I've seen concerts in it, and iirc it holds 10k plus. Middle of nowhere, I know, but not terribly far from Memphis airport...probably not much in the way of hotels around Tupelo these days?
FYI…
Clinton was named the 3rd safest city in the state of Mississippi for the third year in a row in 2021.
Police Department - City of Clinton
Consistently ranked as one of the safest cities in Mississippi, Clinton is home to a thriving, community-focused police department.www.clintonms.org
Sure do hear a lot of break ins, robberies, shooting on the way into town on highway 80 i.e. Kroger parking, WalMart parking, etc. which I'm sure is just spill over from JacktownFYI…
Clinton was named the 3rd safest city in the state of Mississippi for the third year in a row in 2021.
Police Department - City of Clinton
Consistently ranked as one of the safest cities in Mississippi, Clinton is home to a thriving, community-focused police department.
Here's some info not issued by the city:
While I supported the new flag, it had zero to do with the lawlessness we see on our streets daily. The gangbangers that operate on our streets couldn’t care less about a flag. Our neighbor States have the exact same problems just in some cases to a slightly smaller degree. I have a Bulldog friend that lives a few miles out from Montgomery, Al. He says that Montgomery is terrible. Same problems that we face around here. I have heard that many Louisiana towns face the same problems. The common denominator for the various cities and towns is the broken family unit, kids raising themselves on the streets. No interest in an education and trying to do better. No education equals no good job opportunities. No parental guidance equals another generation that just doesn’t care. Remember the song, on a cold gray Chicago morn another little baby child is born in the gettho? Rinse and repeat. Same problem, just not Chicago. In fact I have read that Jackson’s murder rate is higher than Chicago. It depresses me to even think about where our State is headed long term. Think I will drop out of this one and go enjoy some cool sunshine for the remainder of the afternoon. I hope we win tonight.
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but you don’t want to unnecessarily upset people either.
I’d give JSU a sweetheart deal to have selected events there— and maybe work with them to host SWAC tournaments.
I’d also ask Southern Miss, State, and Ole Miss nicely about having neutral site games here.
Tupelo is growing just fine, but it's much too small to ever truly contend for a spot hosting an NCAA regional. I think Tupelo's metro population is like 140K. Probably need to be over 500K with again, a sizable arena.
Property crime in Clinton is average for Mississippi— and that’s likely because of what you’ve mentioned— spillover from Jackson.
You just have to be smart and not leave stuff out in the open— and also lock your cars.
Clinton ain’t Noxapater.
If money were no object, I'f tear down Smith-Wills and move the Agricultural museum and built a state of the art arena and entertainment district there.
As I'm reading this, the biggest issue I can see is that everybody needs to get together on the same plan. You can have different cities developing venues for different sports, but you have to get everybody in the state behind it. I don't know if you'll ever do that. From what I remember from living in Mississippi you had too many different factions of good ol' boys who never could work together
Yep. A part of me wanted to include Tupelo but it’s just too small to be considered for anything D1.
That said, if D2 ever got into neutral site regionals for basketball, Tupelo would be a good location.
Yep. You’d have more success getting everyone on SPS to agree on something.
And we know how likely that is.
Or you break right through the bottom and into an even deeper black hole you'll never escape from. Jackson is about there.
The coast Coliseum isn’t suitable for this type of event. Idk what their capacity requirements are, but the Coliseum would need upgrades for the potential to host. It works for some concerts and minor league Hockey past that it’s too dated.
This is true. DC has a large population of Mississippians that relocated as adults but yes DC is heavily influenced by Memphis. As is east mississippi to Alabama and the coast to New Orleans.
I attribute some of the out of state influence in Mississippi to Jackson being no attraction for any Mississippians beyond one hour of there. I grew up in Columbus and went to Tuscaloosa, Birmingham and Memphis more times than I can count. Jackson never, but for ball games. Which wasn't much.
Not sure I'm following this. Desoto County is literally a significant part of the Memphis Metro, it doesn't exist without Memphis. That's not the same as anywhere in east MS or the coast, in regards to Alabama or NOLA. Of course there is a connection on the Coast to NOLA, all the way to Mobile, for obvious cultural reasons.
If you're saying that people from that area go to Birmingham to shop or go to concerts or whatever, sure. That's true of anywhere, people go to the nearest city that has what they need.
May be but I've been over there twice in the last month and you can see it's getting a foothold.FYI…
Clinton was named the 3rd safest city in the state of Mississippi for the third year in a row in 2021.
Police Department - City of Clinton
Consistently ranked as one of the safest cities in Mississippi, Clinton is home to a thriving, community-focused police department.
Last edited:
The problem really is just lack of population. If Jackson were well run, then it has the population around it to at least have a shot without relying on drawing population from a bigger area. Although when you consider the population with disposable money to routinely support ticketed events, it's probably not so great.
The Coast has the population it can draw on from New Orleans to Mobile and to a lesser extent from Hattiesburg, but even if you put the money into having a facility there, the question is still why put it on the Coast and try to draw population from New Orleans when you already have a facility in New Orleans that is capable. I think that's one of those things we'd have to overpay for to get, and I'm not sure it'd end up being a positive.
Same issue for Desoto County. Even if you put the money into a facility there, it'd probably only be competitive if Memphis became so unsafe and/or couldn't provide basic infrastructure like running water so that Memphis wasn't a consideration.
My point is Jackson has never offered much to the rest of the state to attract people there. Columbus in those days was 2hrs to Bham and a solid 3hr to Memphis, 2.5 to Jackson.
larger point is Mississippi doesn't have a popular strong city to tie the state together.
Seriously? It’s because the SEC is headquartered in Bham. Geez… and they have spent Millions on downtown and refreshing all the hotels for the World games last summer. Wish we had played in Bham.
I gotcha. And yeah, it's just size, really. Memphis metro is about 1.3M, Birmingham is 1.1M, NOLA 1M, Jackson is 600K.
Size = cool things to do, and reasons to go.
Elma Roand Field house is the on campus site but basically for the women's games now.
They used to play in the Mid-South Col then moved to Pyramid, now I believe besically all their home games are played off campus at the FedEx Forum.
I saw Plant, Page, & Clapton there year’s ago. I believe it was Clapton’s Blues Tour. Had to be sometime in the 90’s. Killer show. The acoustics were just not good in the Pyramid. They tried to improve it by hanging these cloth baffles that hung half moon draped in the ceilings voids but just didn’t work. Basketball games were fun and loud there tho.
I actually right out of college worked for a steel rebar company that contracted that job. There were some big rods in that bad boy. Like 50’ #10’s w/8’ tails on each end. If I remember correctly the companies had to estimate how many men might get killed on that job for insurance purposes. I believe the estimate was 10 souls. To my knowledge, not a single soul was lost on that job. The closest to that I understand was when they were cleaning off the upper decks at times, they would rope off the bottom areas below. Bunch of Mexicans working there and one who couldn’t read english walked under a level on time they were pushing debris off of. A 4” x 4” 20’ stud came down headlong, power drives him on the top of the head. He had his hard hat on but it broke his neck!
Other than that, I understood that was the only major injury on that whole job. Kinna unbelievable if you think about it. I would see those red iron workers up there walking those beams w/o a safety rope freely! Don’t know how one of those guys didn’t fall w/no net underneath it would have been really bad.
I go up to the old BPS now and get my hunting and fishing needs satisfied.
Nice place, just watch for gators!
The other thing you have to consider with an NCAA host site is nearby hotel availability. They like having plenty of hotel space relatively close for the teams and the fans that will be traveling in.
I heard a story yesterday about a person arrested for armed robbery. It was said to be this guys 23rd felony arrest. The sad thing is that I was not surprised. We hear things like this all the time. Here in Columbus we have a local business owner that has had the copper wire stolen out of his heating and cooling unit 3 times recently. He has a security system and called the police all 3 times. When they finally responded each time with lights flashing and the siren going of course the thief had run off. The 4th time, the business owner and his wife went to their business, held the guy at gun point, tied him up, and then called the local police. Apparently the police were offended that the good citizen had done their job for them. They released the thief and arrested the business owner for pointing a gun at the criminal. There has been quiet an uproar within the community over their actions but to my knowledge the charges against the business owner have not been dropped. What in the cornbread he!!? If we, the citizens of Mississippi, continue to elect people that will just feed the beast we might as well all just pull up stakes and search for greener pastures. We are just sending a message to the criminals that it’s ok to commit crime after crime. They know that nothing is going to happen to hem. No wonder we can’t have nice things.