| 26 January 2012
I was born in 1975 and attended Ole Miss from 1995 - 1998. For a solid year of my life in Oxford I was a minor - in possession of alcohol - several times a week. I'm hereby turning myself in and throwing myself on the mercy of the Court. If I was going to be a narc and turn in everybody else who was guilty with me I'd need a student directory and I'd only cross out the names of people I didn't know.
In light of my experience, it's somewhat comical that it makes the news that new Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace got an MIP in Oxford, but that's the world we live in. While I can hardly fault Wallace for having a beer at a restaurant in Oxford on a Thursday night (see above), the fact is it's now a black mark on him, and it's in the news. It's not fair is it?
Well, actually, it is. Wallace wants to be a starting quarterback at Ole Miss. Like it or not, quarterbacks are held to a different standard. SEC quarterbacks are held to that standard under a microscope. Ask Stephen Garcia (he laughs at Wallace's MIP). Welcome to big time college football Wallace. Consider this MIP your orientation. While I don't morally fault Wallace for having a beer, he needs to now understand this is the way it's going to be. He's not a scrawny nobody from Jackson (like me) and he can't blend into the crowd. He's Bo Wallace, and aside from that, he's tall. He sort of sticks out. When he walks in a bar in Oxford everybody is going to know he's there, and they're going to watch him. "There's Bo Wallace," they'll tell their friends. "He's the quarterback." Wallace now represents Ole Miss. If Wallace wins the starting job, he'll be only one or two steps behind Hugh Freeze as the University's biggest amabassador.
The MIP is a tough way to learn the lesson, and it may not be fair that it gets so much attention when 98-percent of the student population at Ole Miss would be guilty of the same on any given Thursday night, but out of 10,000 students there are only four SEC quarterbacks. An Ole Miss quarterback isn't just another student. If he plays well and wins, he'll be worshipped. If plays poorly and loses he'll be questioned relentlessly, and if he has a beer on a Thursday night underage he'll probably get an MIP and make the news. One perk to all this scrutiny is potential fame and celebrity and maybe even a few million dollars one day if he's lucky. Heck, every Ole Miss fan in Mississippi knows Wallace's name and he hasn't even put on the uniform for the first time. But with the good comes the bad and the bad is the scrutiny.
Wallace probably didn't fully understand all of this before Thursday. Now he does. It's what he does with this new information that will tell us and Hugh Freeze exactly what kind of quarterback and LEADER Wallace will be.
Welcome to Oxford, Bo.
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