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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

First of all, check out the nifty links to sports sites on the SportsBlog. You’re welcome, dang it. There are more to come. If you insist on making a request, drop Dr. S an e-mail. Now, we return to our regularly scheduled message.

OK, so you’re not a fan of college football and you’re looking for something to do this weekend? Dr. S has plenty of suggestions. These are listed in the order they occur, not merit:

1. Go to a high school football game on Friday night. Be true to your school, if you have one. If not, there are tons of talented athletes playing football in Jackson and the surrounding area. Callaway, Provine and Jim Hill are just three of the city teams that are having great seasons. Get some fresh air for goodness sake.

2. NCAA Division I college basketball teams can begin practicing at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Two schools, Mississippi State and Alcorn State, are going to hold Midnight Madness sessions Friday night/Saturday morning for both their men’s and women’s teams. No, Dr. S can’t tell you who’s going to be in the Final Four yet. He’s got to take a jaunt to Vegas first …

3. The embattled and too-often-homeless Jackson Bandits open their season on Friday night at Baton Rouge. You can’t listen to it on the radio on WSLI 930 AM, so go to a high school football game. Saturday’s and Sunday’s games will be on the radio. And the Bandits play their home opener on Oct. 18, presuming the Mississippi Coliseum folks don’t schedule a tractor pull at the last minute

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.