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Walsh knew he couldn’t win with offense alone any more than a defensive-minded coach could win with defense alone. And defense, to Walsh’s mind, was not a strategic challenge but a matter of finding better players.
Whatever his politics, Hugh was, by nature, a football liberal.
The left tackle was defined by his weakest moment. He wasn’t measured by the body of his work but by the outliers.
The twist to the Mississippi State rivalry was that the fans knew exactly why they hated each other. The game served as a proxy for the hoary Mississippi class struggle, between the white folks who wore shirts with collars on them and the white folks who did not.
Sports was the closest thing in America to pure meritocracy, the one avenue of ambition widely thought to be open to all. (Pity the kid inside Hurt Village who was born to play the piano, or manage people, or trade bonds.)
