It has been quite the five-plus months since “Champions for Change: How the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Their Bold Coach Defied Segregation” was published by The History Press. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many of y’all who have bought the book on a one-on-one basis, and that’s been great. I’ve also been fortunate to have great book events all over the place, including the chance to speak to civic clubs all around the state of Mississippi.

So, thank you. Very, very much.

All of which sounds like a preface to the end of the book, and that’s not the case. (Is there any way a book can end? Thought not.) But it is a preface to this: The book has been so successful that I only have a few dozen copies left in my stock, and I’d like to send those off to good homes sooner than later.

So here’s a deal: For all subsequent orders from this website, I won’t charge shipping and handling. How’s that? Remember, I’ll sign all copies ordered here. I’ll even personalize them if you enter in something for me to say.

And Memphians, take note: I’ll be signing and discussing the book on Thursday, March 21, at 6 p.m. at The Booksellers at Laurelwood. Come on by.

It’s been a while. I know.

A week on the road for book signings and an anniversary trip, and then the rush of Christmas orders, and then Christmas itself. Hasn’t left much time to blog about “Champions for Change.”

But in the spirit of being better late than never, let’s catch up.

We had a fabulous time on Dec. 10 in Jackson, at the event Rick Cleveland hosted at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. And it was great to meet those of you who came to the events in Greenwood, Starkville and back in Jackson (at Lemuria) by week’s end. The response was truly overwhelming, and I’m indebted to you.

The same spirit counts for the next week. With Christmas coming, y’all thought the book would make a good present. So I spent quite a bit of time filling orders and heading to the post office.

The good news: “Champions for Change” has been quite the success. I sold out of my initial batch of books for resale, as did Book Mart in Starkville and Lemuria in Jackson. I ordered a couple more boxes and I’m almost through that first one. So if you’re wanting a signed copy for a belated Christmas present or, I dunno, just to read yourself, you may want to order sooner than later. Only about 100 copies remain, at least in my inventory.

If you haven’t yet purchased your copy of “Champions for Change: How the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Their Bold Coach Defied Segregation,” here are four good opportunities next week in Mississippi:

Monday, Dec. 10: At the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, I’ll join former MSU players Bailey Howell, Doug Hutton and Larry Lee for a discussion of the 1963 MSU-Loyola game and the era that preceded it. The discussion, which will be led by Rick Cleveland, will begin at 6:30. I’ll be there at 5 signing and selling, and I’ll hang around afterward, too, if you can’t make it before the discussion. (1152 Lakeland Drive, Map)

Thursday, Dec. 13: TurnRow Book Company, Greenwood, 5:30 p.m. (304 Howard Street, Map)

Friday, Dec. 14: Campus Book Mart, Starkville, 3-5 p.m. (318 East Lee Boulevard, Map)

Saturday, Dec. 15: Lemuria Books, Jackson, 3 p.m. (4465 I-55 North #202, Map)

Hope to see you at one of these events. If you can’t make it, of course, there’s always online ordering, where I’ll sign every copy.

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Three weeks from tonight, I’ll be part of an event at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson that will commemorate and explore the 1963 Mississippi State-Loyola NCAA tournament game, the one that serves as the climactic event of my book.

Rick Cleveland will lead a conversation with former Mississippi State players Doug Hutton, Larry Lee and Bailey Howell. (I’ll be in it, too.) We’ll talk about that MSU-Loyola game with Doug and Larry, who were members of the team that went to East Lansing, Mich., to play in it. And we’ll talk about it with Bailey, who was also at the game, but in the stands. (The greatest player in Mississippi State’s history graduated in 1959 and didn’t get a chance to do what his 1963 counterparts did, and that’s play in the NCAA tournament. So he drove over from Detroit, where he was playing professionally at the time, and watched.)

I’ve been looking forward to this ever since Rick, who is in his first year as the Hall’s executive director, brought up the idea in a summertime phone conversation. Doug, Larry and Bailey were three of the best interview subjects I encountered in the two-year process of researching “Champions for Change.” And we all know how Rick can help tell a Mississippi story, don’t we? The timing is perfect: Mississippi State and Loyola will face each other in a rematch of sorts of that 1963 game on Saturday, Dec. 15.

I’ll remind you a few times before Dec. 10 but I wanted to make sure it was already on your calendar.

The particulars:
Where: Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, 1152 Lakeland Drive, Jackson (Map)
When: Monday, Dec. 10. I’ll be signing and selling books starting at 5 p.m. and the program will start at 6:30. I’ll be around after the program, too, in case you want a signed copy.
Admission: Free. I’ll make a donation to the MSHoF from the book sales proceeds from the night.

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Tom Bailey, a Tupelo native, Mississippi State graduate and a business reporter at The Commercial Appeal, wrote this review of “Champions for Change” in Sunday’s CA. I’m glad Tom enjoyed the book; I hope you like the review.

And I’m glad that the Rotary Club in Hernando invited me to be their guest speaker at lunch today. Had a great time. I’ll be in Starkville tomorrow night, speaking to the Starkville Quarterback Club.

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The Memphis Maroon Club was nice to invite me to its game watching party Saturday night at Mellow Mushroom in Germantown. I’ll be there signing and selling books. The game starts at 6 but they’re encouraging people to show up by 5:30 to grab seats.

Which reminds me, here’s an updated list of events in the short-term future for the book:

Saturday, Nov. 10 – Memphis Maroon Club, 6 p.m., Mellow Mushroom in Germantown
Wednesday, Nov. 14 –  Rotary Club of Hernando, noon, Hernando Library
Thursday, Nov. 15 – Starkville Quarterback Club, 6 p.m., Starkville Country Club
Monday, Dec. 10 – Discussion with Bailey Howell, Doug Hutton and Larry Lee (and moderated by Rick Cleveland) at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson, signing and reception starting at 5 p.n. with program beginning at 6:30.

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Listen up, teachers. If you ever doubt your influence, read this entry.

I was in my hometown of Paris, Tenn., over the weekend for a couple of family events and a signing of “Champions for Change.” There, I had the opportunity to visit with a couple of people who helped make this book possible. They weren’t players on the Mississippi State teams of that era, nor were they editors or librarians or any of the number of folks I encountered along the way. Their influence came much earlier. They were teachers of mine at Henry County High School: Vickie Wheatley Boyd and Stephen Geller.

Mrs. Boyd — look, all these years later, it still doesn’t feel right calling teachers by their first names — actually hosted the event at Merison’s, a store she and her husband own. She taught journalism and was the newspaper adviser, and always preferred The Commercial Appeal when it came to using the major dailies we received in Paris for teaching points. (So, you know, she’s smart.) Mr. Geller taught English, and while I don’t recall the exact class title, I believe it was literature. I know it was junior year. But his influence went far beyond his exact class title or textbook. Mr. Geller loved the language and especially loved seeing his students learn.

Without these two teachers, I can’t imagine going down the path that led to this book. So you’ll understand why I wanted to be sure to have my wife take photos of us together, and I hope you enjoy them here on this blog:

Pretty cool, huh?

So, thanks to Mrs. Boyd and Mr. Geller and all the other teachers I’ve had along the way. Never doubt your influence. And realize that when you come to a book signing and say you’re proud, well, that’s about as awesome as it gets.

(Photo credit: Courtnay Veazey)

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It’s been a long day, but a rewarding one. I zoomed down the perpetually-under-construction Highway 78 this morning bound for Tupelo, where I had a couple of events lined up to promote “Champions for Change.” The Kiwanis Club was nice enough to have me — thanks to Jim Goodwin for the invitation — and my old friend Brad Locke was nice enough to introduce me. I spoke for a while on the book but I had a feeling I would get a lot of questions, and did I ever. It was an engaged audience, and I appreciate that many of them left with signed copies for themselves and for Christmas gifts.

Brad and I caught up over coffee at Cafe 212 later, and my friends Jessi Wilson and Chris Kieffer dropped by, too. From there, it was off to Reed’s Gum Tree Bookstore, where a signing was planned. What a wonderful place, full of books — most of them, I believe, written and signed by John Grisham!

Two of the men I interviewed for this book, Kermit Davis and Jimmy Wise, were kind enough to drop by the signing. I’ve said before that one of the most rewarding parts of this endeavor is hearing the nice words from the former players about whom I wrote. To be able to tell their story is truly an honor. But with that comes a bit of anxiety. What if they didn’t like it? So believe me when I tell you it puts a smile on my face to get a handshake and ‘great job’ from men like Kermit and Jimmy.

Lucia Randle of the Reed’s staff was kind enough to take this picture of us:

That’s Kermit on the left; Jimmy on the right. I’m the ugly one in the middle. Kermit was on the 1959 Mississippi State team that went 24-1 and later became the MSU head coach. Jimmy was a manager on the teams of the early 1960s and served as a particularly strong resource for me throughout the research and writing process.

And while I don’t have a picture, Bobby Nichols was at the Kiwanis meeting. Bobby had memories of Babe McCarthy from his Baldwyn days and shared them with me one June day in 2011. He was particularly helpful in describing Babe’s early coaching days, and it was nice to see him today.

The weekend, at least as far as it concerns the book, is not finished. I’ll be in my hometown of Paris, Tennessee, tomorrow at 4 p.m., signing and selling copies at Merison’s (202 Memorial Drive). I’ll be there until 5:30, so please drop by.

ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary series continued last night with a contribution from a guy we all know well, Wright Thompson. He lives in Oxford and is intimately in tune with Ole Miss, so his contribution to “Ghosts of Ole Miss,” which chronicled the 1962 Rebel football team that went unbeaten in the same semester that James Meredith integrated the university, was surely significant. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get to watch it all; I’ll catch up on DVR soon enough.)

Twitter was buzzing about the documentary last night, so I tweeted this in reference to my book, “Champions for Change: How the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Their Bold Coach Defied Segregation”:

Plenty of buzz for #30for30 — and there should be. But here’s what happened in Mississippi just five months later: bit.ly/SpXaTR

— Kyle Veazey (@kyleveazey) October 31, 2012

Thing is, though, the connection is deeper than just the two events’ proximity on a calendar. At the risk of giving up too much of the book, which you can buy on this very site, let me explain.

Mississippi State’s basketball teams were kept out of the NCAA tournaments in 1959, 1961 and 1962 because of the “unwritten law” that prohibited Mississippi institutions from competing against integrated teams. The “unwritten law” had roots that were many years old; I discovered one implementation in the late 1940s. But by the 1950s, sparked by an instance that involved, of all places, Jones County Junior College, it had become airtight. (That Brown v. Board came down in 1954 added to the urgency.) It did not take long to realize the true intent of the “unwritten law”: It was a bulwark against integration. By keeping competition segregated, it helped in keeping the schools segregated. (Or so was the reasoning at the time.)

Advance to the fall of 1962, with James Meredith attending classes at Ole Miss. So when Mississippi State president Dean Colvard weighed his options that winter as it pertained to his basketball team, preserving the “unwritten law” proved empty. After all, now that the universities were integrated, what was the point?

Colvard’s decision was much more complicated than that, of course. But the integration of Ole Miss was a key component, and a critical reason why it’s beneficial to view the entirety of the 1962-63 academic year in the state of Mississippi when thinking about the Mississippi State basketball team’s trailblazing trip to the NCAA tournament in March.

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We’re almost a month into “Champions for Change,” and I’m grateful for the response thus far. But we’re not finished. I’ll be speaking and selling and signing this weekend and at various places through the coming weeks and months.

As we add more events, I’ll mention them here.

But there are a couple of other ways worth following the goings-on with the book, and that’s why I blog this morning.

Here’s how:
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