Homegrown Rebel

Mississippi has had several tennis players go on to become All-Americans at Ole Miss. There was Dave Randall (Tupelo) in the late eighties and then Courtney Chapman (Jackson) in the late 90s. Most recently, Jackson native Devin Britton became the youngest to win an NCAA Singles Championship in 2009, and Grenada product Kristi Boxx earned All-America honors in 2010. Can Oxford native Zach Wilder, who signed with the Rebels Tuesday, join that elite club. Time will tell, but if genes have anything to do with it, perhaps a successful career is in his future. His dad, Dr. Mark Wilder, the dean of the School of Accountancy, was an All-American at Alabama. Click here to read an article in the Oxford Eagle on Zach, a four-time State Champion.

Freshman Rebels Arrive On Campus

A total of 20 incoming Rebel freshmen from various sports are already on campus, as they are enrolled in first summer term which began today. For football, 16 of the 23 newcomers have arrived, including seven prep All-American selections from the celebrated class that dominated recruiting in Mississippi like no school ever has.

Here are those new student-athletes that are enrolled in Ole Miss' first summer term.

Football

Justin Bell

Chief Brown

Serderius Bryant

Uriah Grant

Mitch Hall

Woodrow Hamilton

Ethan Hutson

C.J. Johnson

Maikhail Miller

Donte Moncrief

Collins Moore

Aaron Morris

Denzel Nkemdiche

Cody Prewitt

Kameron Wood

T.J. Worthy


Men’s Basketball

Aaron Jones

Jamal Jones

Jarvis Summers


Soccer

Rafaella

Rebel Teammates Get Married

In case you missed last week's story, follow the link to read about a pair of Ole Miss track and field athletes who recently tied the knot.

http://www.olemisssports.com/sports/c-track/spec-rel/052611aaa.html

Also, an update since the story was written: LaJada Baldwin qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championships with the Rebels' 4x100 meter relay team. Congrats to her, again!

Countdown To Kickoff: 100 Days

With the 2011 opener against BYU 100 days away, the blog is once again launching its popular (or at least it's popular in our office) Countdown to Kickoff. The countdown actually began this morning with the highly anticipated release of the gameday survey results and improvement plan, which includes 100 improvements in the next 100 days. If you have yet to see it, it's very impressive and includes some great plans to improve what is already the greatest gameday tradition in college football.

As far as our kickoff post on the blog, day 100 highlights the 100th victory in the history of the Ole Miss football program, which was the season opener of the 1925 campaign. On Sept. 26 of that year, the Rebels smoked Arkansas A&M, now known as Arkansas State, 53-0. The following image was taken from the 1926 Ole Miss yearbook with the cutline, "Ole Miss vs. A&M on paper." I can't figure it out so please comment if you can.


FYI, we will jump around a little bit on the countdown, so stay tuned for our next post in the upcoming weeks.

Nkemdiche Highlights

As we just posted on the main site, the Rebels have picked up defensive back Denzel Nkemdiche (pronounced kim-DEECH-ee). Check out some clips of Denzel from his prep days in Georgia.

Together Again In Paris

Former 1995 NCAA Doubles Champion and Rebel standout Mahesh Bhupathi got back together in tennis with his countryman Leander Paes earlier this year, and they are off and running in the second slam of the year, the French Open. The third-seeded duo, who has won three grand slam titles together, including the 1999 and 2001 French Open, won their opening round Thursday at Roland Garros. The New York Times caught up with the pair in Paris for a story. Click here to read it.

Mahesh Bhupathi (left) and Leander Paes

Q&A With Former Rebel Yolanda Moore

In today's Rewind Wednesday in the Clarion Ledger, Rod Walker talks with former Rebel Yolanda Moore who was named the girls basketball coach at Heritage Academy in Columbus earlier this month. Moore lettered in basketball at Ole Miss from 1992-96 and was a three-time All-SEC honoree. She played professionally for six years in both the WNBA and overseas and won two WNBA titles with Houston. To read the Q&A click here.

Star-Studded Graduation

As we reported on the main site last week, a whole heap of Rebels participated in graduation ceremonies on Saturday. As many as 57 student-athletes had the opportunity to take part in commencement exercises, including several well known Rebels. Among the list of graduates (but not necessarily walking) this year are Kansas City Chief Dexter McCluster, Olympic long jumper Brittney Reese and four-time All-SEC soccer player Danielle Johnson. If you saw my tweet earlier, you know the two I was most excited about are 1,000-point hoops scorers Chris Warren and Zach Graham. In a sport where a lot of kids don't finish, it's refreshing to see two great players stay all four years and wear the cap and gown. Congrats to all of our Rebel graduates!

From The Pros To College Coaching

Last week's NCAA Division I Women’s East Regional golf tournament at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Fla., featured many of the nation's top collegiate players with a number of LPGA Futures Tour members serving as their coaches. One of those was Ole Miss assistant coach Janell Howland. Check out the entire article here.

Military Appreciation Weekend-Ole Miss vs. #2 South Carolina

Ole Miss baseball will honor members of the United States Armed Forces this weekend during the series against South Carolina as a part of Military Appreciation Weekend at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field.

Military personnel will be admitted free with presentation of their military ID, and a member representing a different branch of the military will throw out the first pitch prior to each contest with the Gamecocks. The combined ROTC color guard will also be on hand to present the colors on Friday and Saturday.

Email a picture of your service member in uniform to rebtalk@olemiss.edu for a chance to see them displayed on the video board at the baseball games throughout the weekend. Picture files need to be in jpeg format and no larger than 5 MB. We will also need the service member’s name, military branch, rank and hometown.

Fans can also tweet a personal message thanking the military to @OleMissNow with a chance to see their message displayed on the video board during one of the weekend games. Use the hash tag #REDwhiteBLUE to identify your tweet as a message of thanks for use on the video board.

Here are a few of the entries we have gotten so far.