October 31, 1959: Billy Cannon's Halloween Run

October 31, 1959: Louisiana State University hosts the University of Mississippi at Tiger Stadium in a foggy Baton Rouge. LSU comes into the game ranked Number 1, Ole Miss Number 3. Late in the 4th quarter, Ole Miss leads 3-0.

Jake Gibbs, Ole Miss' quarterback and punter, and later a catcher for the New York Yankees, punts, and Billy Cannon, who led LSU to the National Championship the year before, returns it 89 yards, breaking 7 tackles and running the last 60 yards untouched through the fog, for a touchdown that wins the game, 7-3. It becomes known as "Billy Cannon's Halloween Run," and it effectively clinches the Heisman Trophy for him.

But LSU lost to the University of Tennessee the next week, 14-13, as Cannon was stuffed on an attempt for a 2-point conversion, costing LSU a 2nd straight national title. A rematch with Ole Miss was set up for the Sugar Bowl, and Ole Miss won.

Cannon played in all 10 seasons of the American Football League, winning AFL Championships with the 1960 and '61 Houston Oilers and the 1967 Oakland Raiders, playing in Super Bowl II but losing to the Green Bay Packers. He played 1 more season, in the NFL after the merger, with the Kansas City Chiefs. He later became a dentist, but fell into gambling debts, and turned to counterfeiting to pay them off. He got caught, and served 2 1/2 years in prison. He managed to restore his reputation as the dentist of the Louisiana State Prison system, eventually being named director of its entire medical system. He lived until 2018.

Exactly 20 years later to the day, on October 31, 1979, Billy Cannon Jr. followed in his father's footsteps, sort of. Playing for Broadmoor High School in Baton Rouge, he returns a punt 89 yards for a touchdown, leading them to a 20-18 win over... his father's Alma Mater, Istrouma High School.

A safety, he went to Texas A&M, and was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys. But his career ended 8 games into his rookie season, 1985, as a tackle he made damaged his neck and forced him into early retirement at age 22. He sued the Cowboys for negligence, and the case was settled out of court.

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October 31, 1959 was a Saturday. Among the other college football games played on this day were these:

* Number 2 Northwestern beat Indiana, 30-13 at Dyche Stadium (now Ryan Field) in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois.

* Number 4 Texas beat Southern Methodist (SMU), 21-0 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Texas won the Southwest Conference title.

* Number 5 Syracuse beat Pittsburgh, 35-0 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh. With sophomore running back Ernie Davis, who would win the Heisman Trophy 2 years later, Syracuse rose to Number 1, went to the Cotton Bowl, and beat Texas, winning the National Championship.

* Number 6 University of Southern California (a.k.a. USC) beat the University of California (a.k.a. Cal or Berkeley), 14-7 at California Memorial Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Berkeley.

* Number 7 Penn State beat West Virginia, 28-10 at the old Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia. Losses to Syracuse and Pitt left a pre-Joe Paterno Penn State in the Liberty Bowl, where they beat Alabama.

* Number 8 Auburn beat Florida, 6-0 at Cliff Hare Stadium (now Jordan-Hare Stadium) in Auburn, Alabama.

* Number 9 Georgia Tech were upset by Duke, 10-7 at Grant Field in Atlanta. Tech had already lost to Auburn, beat Notre Dame the next week, then dropped their next 3, to Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas, to drop out of bowl consideration.

* Number 10 Wisconsin beat Michigan, 19-10 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Wisconsin won the Big Ten Conference title.

* Number 14 Georgia beat Florida State, 42-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. Georgia didn't play LSU or Ole Miss, but each of them finished with 1 loss in the Southeastern Conference, while Georgia went undefeated in SEC play. But the Sugar Bowl wanted the LSU-Ole Miss rematch, perhaps the 1st rematch in bowl game history. So George were invited to the Orange Bowl.

* Number 17 University of Washington beat UCLA, 23-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Washington won the title in the league then named the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU, now the Pacific-Twelve Conference), then beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.

* Missouri, then unranked, lost to Colorado, 21-20 at Folsom Field in the Denver suburb of Boulder, Colorado. Missouri rebounded to win the Big Seven Conference title (Oklahoma State soon joined to make it the Big Eight), and lost to Georgia in the Orange Bowl.

* Among the service academies, Army and Air Force played each other, to a 13-13 tie at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; while Navy lost to Notre Dame, 25-22 at the new Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.

* And among the New Jersey teams, Princeton beat Brown, 7-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton; and Rutgers lost to the University of Delaware, 34-14 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.

Baseball season was over. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 123-109 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 120-112 at the Philadelphia Civic Center. Wilt Chamberlain, in only his 2nd NBA game, scored 36 points and grabbed 34 rebounds.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 117-108 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the Cincinnati Royals, 109-102 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Clyde Lovellette scored 33 for the Hawks, Jack Twyman 35 for the Royals.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Canadiens played  to a tie, 2-2 at the Montreal Forum. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

October 1, 1962: James Meredith & JFK Integrate "Ole Miss"

October 1, 1962: James Meredith registers as a full-time student at the University of Mississippi. This is a very big deal, since he is the 1st black student at "Ole Miss."

Governor Ross Barnett had ordered the Mississippi National Guard to prevent this, and pro-segregation demonstrators were ready to beat or even kill Meredith if he tried.

Two days earlier, Ole Miss played the University of Kentucky at Memorial Stadium in Jackson, and won 14-0. Confederate flags were everywhere in the stands. At halftime, a gigantic Confederate flag was unveiled on the field. Fans chanted, "We want Ross!" Barnett went down to the field, took a microphone, and said, "I love Mississippi! I love her people! Our customs! I love and respect our heritage!" And he got a standing ovation.

President John F. Kennedy, on the insistence of his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, federalized the Guard, and ordered them instead to protect Meredith and allow him to enroll. The racists rioted, and threw things at the Guardsmen, who fired back. Two men were killed. But the law prohibiting racial discrimination in enrollment at State-sponsored schools was upheld. On October 1, Meredith walked into the Lyceum, and became a student at the University of Mississippi.

Meredith, whose college credits from the all-black Jackson State University in Mississippi were carried over, received his degree from Ole Miss 10 months later.

The following Spring, the basketball team at Mississippi State University, who had won the Southeastern Conference Championship, was placed in the NCAA Tournament, to play Loyola University of Chicago, an integrated team. Barnett called the State Police, and told them to set up roadblocks to prevent the MSU Bulldogs from leaving the State to play that integrated team.

It didn't work: They snuck out of the State. And got to McGaw Hall, on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, outside Chicago. And played Loyola. And lost the game. But they won a moral victory. Loyola became the 1st team with more black than white starters to win the National Championship.

At the time, State law prohibited Mississippi's Governors from succeeding themselves, so Barnett had to sit out the 1963 election. He ran again in 1967, and finished a distant 4th in the Democratic Primary, the 1st gubernatorial election in the State following the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He never won another office, and died in 1987 -- absolutely unrepentant, unlike such other civil rights opponents as George Wallace of Alabama, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee.

Today, Meredith is 89, and has spent most of the 60 years since as a Republican. Ole Miss has honored him with a statue, and, like its rival Mississippi State, goes out of its way to recognize its role in civil rights, first as an opponent, then as a supporter.

Ole Miss still calls its teams the Rebels, but Confederate paraphernalia is no longer allowed on campus, and the "Colonel Reb" mascot has been retired.

This was also the day that Johnny Carson debuted as host of The Tonight Show. I have a separate entry for that.

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October 1, 1962 was a Monday. Actor Esai Morales was born.

It was the day of Game 1 of the National League Playoff, 11 years after the Giants and Dodgers did it in New York. Now, they do it in California, and Billy Pierce pitches a 3-hit shutout. He hardly needs to, as 2 homers by Willie Mays, and 1 each by Orlando Cepeda and Jim Davenport, give the San Francisco Giants an 8-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Candlestick Park.