Speaker 1: Everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Shop Talk two of two. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the first one, and I hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: this one. Today we're going to talk about something that's
Speaker 1: really near and dear to my heart, and it's the
Speaker 1: story of Chucky Mullins and Bride Gains and the signa
Speaker 1: new charity ball. And we'll dive into that right after
Speaker 1: these brief messages from our Tenner sponsors. Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 1: Most of you should know. I'm an Old Miss guy,
Speaker 1: and I want to tell you about maybe one of
Speaker 1: the most formative experiences I had in college that really
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with me. On October twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, during Ole Miss's homecoming game against Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: a guy named Chucky Mullins, playing safety, came up to
Speaker 1: break a pass. He put his head in the back
Speaker 1: of Brad Gains. Brad Gaines was a full back for
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt and he was definitely going to be a top
Speaker 1: three pick, a top three round pick. He was their stud.
Speaker 1: Chucky smoked him right on about the five or six
Speaker 1: yard line and the ball came loose bought. Hemingway went
Speaker 1: nuts because it broke up a big path at a
Speaker 1: critical juncture. Everybody started going back to their huddles and
Speaker 1: we were ready for the next play. Except Chucky didn't
Speaker 1: get up. He laid there. I was on the sideline
Speaker 1: that day, I was not in the stands, and I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, Wow, he's knocked out cold because as he
Speaker 1: lay on his back, his elbow was still on the ground,
Speaker 1: but his forearm was perpendicular to the ground, and when
Speaker 1: his arm fell to the ground, it just fell without
Speaker 1: any resistance. And so I knew this guy was just
Speaker 1: out cold. And I'd seen that before football two times,
Speaker 1: and it's scary, but you know, it's unfortunately part of
Speaker 1: the game. Roy Lee Mullins Chucky was laying there, and
Speaker 1: ironically the UH the head trainer for miss back then
Speaker 1: was Leeroy Mullins, and mister Mullins ran out to him
Speaker 1: like they always do when somebody's hurt, and when he
Speaker 1: got there, you could tell it was more than just
Speaker 1: passed out. He frantically was waving arms and the team
Speaker 1: dot came off the sideline. In a matter of instance,
Speaker 1: there was ten people around Chuck e Chuckie was a freshman,
Speaker 1: number thirty eight, and to be honest with you, not
Speaker 1: many of us even knew the kid's name. He was
Speaker 1: a second string guy, and he was in on a
Speaker 1: Nickel package about ten minutes later. And you know how
Speaker 1: it is when somebody gets hurt, you can tell it's serious.
Speaker 1: In a football stadium, it goes from wild and reverently
Speaker 1: loud to you can hear pendrop. There's fifty thousand people
Speaker 1: sitting there trying to figure out what's going on. And
Speaker 1: they roll out the back. Then they didn't have like
Speaker 1: the motorized cater cars. They just rolled a stretcher out
Speaker 1: onto the five yard line and put them up on it.
Speaker 1: And they actually passed me. And when they passed me, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm gawking like any kid would. And they'd clipped Chucky's
Speaker 1: face mask at the jaw clip, but kept the clips
Speaker 1: on the top forehead part of his helmet, So they
Speaker 1: basically clipped the clips off and folded his face mask
Speaker 1: like he would the hood of a car, and had
Speaker 1: them all taped down, and so he couldn't move, and
Speaker 1: his face was so swollen that his cheeks had protruded
Speaker 1: outside the plastic shell of the helmet. It was awful,
Speaker 1: and I knew, like everybody else in the stadium knew
Speaker 1: that this was probably a neck injury. Plavor Zoom little
Speaker 1: by little gets louder. People forget it and keep playing,
Speaker 1: and then like twelve minutes later, from the other end
Speaker 1: zone outside the stadium, the helicopter picks up and wheels
Speaker 1: north toward Memphis, and it was like a second hush
Speaker 1: fell over because everybody knew then you know, this is bad.
Speaker 1: The next day we found out that this kid, CHUCKI. Mullins,
Speaker 1: had literally disintegrated the top four vertebrae in his neck
Speaker 1: and he was a quadriplegic. The university and the lums
Speaker 1: and students really rallied around him, and in very short
Speaker 1: order in nineteen eighty nine, there was well over a
Speaker 1: million dollars raised. The university bought theom house, built it
Speaker 1: off campus, and his rehab was a years years and
Speaker 1: a half long rehab and Brad Gaines, this big, burly,
Speaker 1: badass football player, went to Baptist Hospital Memphis and actually
Speaker 1: slept in his car in the parking lot for two
Speaker 1: nights keeping vigil over. Chucky Bride says He'll never forget
Speaker 1: the day he went to visit him, and he was
Speaker 1: wearing his Vanderbilt letter jacket, and the elevator doors parted
Speaker 1: and his bride walked into the hallway to go down
Speaker 1: to see Chucky. It was just filled with Old Miss
Speaker 1: people and it's just like he could, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: talking in the hallway over coffee, and it just was
Speaker 1: a hush, and Chucky could barely talk. He was on
Speaker 1: a ventilator, but he could put his hand over a
Speaker 1: button on the ventilator and say very short words. And
Speaker 1: Brad knelt down and prayed for him and with him,
Speaker 1: and then came up and with tears in his eyes,
Speaker 1: told him, I'm sorry he was and Chucky pushed his
Speaker 1: button and whispered in a guardly fashion and not your fault,
Speaker 1: you go play ball, And that's kind of what Chucky was.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Old Miss was struggling with some problems.
Speaker 1: The student body always rave Confederate flags, the band played
Speaker 1: Dixie about nineteen times a game, and the university was
Speaker 1: struggling with we're not a racist university, but what we're
Speaker 1: portraying can can certainly be used against people to say
Speaker 1: we're racist. In recruiting and other things. But are we
Speaker 1: really portraying who we are as university? And at this
Speaker 1: weird time where we're struggling all that, here's this black
Speaker 1: kid from Russellville, Arkansas, who doesn't have two nicols drubbed together,
Speaker 1: that the entire university is bracing as their favorite son.
Speaker 1: Next to Archie Manning. There's no bigger name at the
Speaker 1: University of the Old Miss than Chuck him my own.
Speaker 1: And it happened overnight. And it wasn't just because this
Speaker 1: kid got hurt. It was because his attitude about being
Speaker 1: hurt and his courage. Later that year, Ole Miss played
Speaker 1: in the Liberty Bowl against air Force and they had
Speaker 1: a quarterback named Dee Dallas who was number two in
Speaker 1: the Heisman balloting, and air Force was favored by sixteen points.
Speaker 1: And right before the game, to everybody's surprise, Chucky rolled
Speaker 1: in in a wheelchair into the locker room. And there
Speaker 1: wasn't a man in there that didn't have tears streaming
Speaker 1: down his face. And he had this infectious smile. And
Speaker 1: he rolled in and he looked at the team, and
Speaker 1: he put his hand over his little thing and he
Speaker 1: said as loud as he could it's time. Ole miss
Speaker 1: beat the crap out of Air Force that night, and
Speaker 1: Billy Brewer, the coach at that time, said there wasn't
Speaker 1: a team in the country that could have beat those
Speaker 1: kids that day. After Chucky rolled in and told him
Speaker 1: it's time, there was just so much inspiration from his
Speaker 1: courage and his attitude. Shortly after Chucky got hurt, there
Speaker 1: was this kid in Lauderdale, Mississippi named Alan Moore, a
Speaker 1: high school kid, a junior, who actually had the exact
Speaker 1: same injury that Chucky did, but it was from a
Speaker 1: very poor high school, again in Lauderdale, and he had
Speaker 1: no money. They didn't even have enough money for a
Speaker 1: wheelchair for him, couldn't build a ramp on his house.
Speaker 1: And we were sitting around in the fraternity house one
Speaker 1: day with a friend of mine, John Quak, and some
Speaker 1: other guys and read that story of the day of
Speaker 1: the Mississippian and John said, you know, we should do something,
Speaker 1: you know, an army of normal folks, we should do
Speaker 1: something for this kid. And so I went to Coach
Speaker 1: Brewer because I had a relationship with them. I went
Speaker 1: to Sparky Bear and the Dinas students at the time
Speaker 1: who got me in front of the chancellor, and we
Speaker 1: came up with the idea of playing what this thing
Speaker 1: was going to be called was a charity ball, which
Speaker 1: is our fraternity in a full pat of football game
Speaker 1: against another fraternity and celtickets and raise money and give
Speaker 1: it to this kid named Alan Moore in honor of
Speaker 1: Chucky Mullins. And so I actually got to meet with
Speaker 1: Chucky and I told him the plan. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't want you to feel disrespected that we're raising money
Speaker 1: for somebody else. And he looked at me and he
Speaker 1: said it's time. Chills ran through me when he said
Speaker 1: that big smile. He wanted us to go raise money
Speaker 1: for someone else because he knew he was taken care of.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of guy was So we put to
Speaker 1: go this football game. Long story short, my Afternity run
Speaker 1: the football game and we raised fifteen thousand dollars. That
Speaker 1: was in nineteen eighty nine. Today they still play that
Speaker 1: game called the Charity Ball once a year and it
Speaker 1: has grown to be the largest Greek philanthropy project in
Speaker 1: the entire United States and is today israe over three
Speaker 1: and a half million dollars for quadriplegics who had no
Speaker 1: hope of good care and wheelchairs and ramps and wheelchair
Speaker 1: accessible vehicles, all in the honor of a kid named
Speaker 1: Chucky Mullins. Why am I telling you the story? Why
Speaker 1: is this shop talk one? It doesn't matter who you are,
Speaker 1: or what happens to you, or what challenges you have
Speaker 1: in the world. If you keep a positive attitude and
Speaker 1: have the temerity to face all obstacles with courage, you
Speaker 1: can change people's lives. Chucky changed an entire generation of
Speaker 1: lives of people at Ole Miss because of his courage,
Speaker 1: because of his inspiration, because of his generosity, and because
Speaker 1: of his spirit. To this very day, every ol Miss
Speaker 1: football team, when they run out of the tunnel at
Speaker 1: Vald Hemingway Stadium, run their head over a copper bust
Speaker 1: of Chucky's head, and underneath it it just says, never
Speaker 1: give up. I think we should always think about the
Speaker 1: story of Chucky Mullins and Brad Gaines and the kids
Speaker 1: at Old Miss who've raised three and a half million dollars,
Speaker 1: all who took a horrible incident and turned it into
Speaker 1: a massive outpouring of generosity and inspiration, all because of
Speaker 1: a guy named Chucky Mullins. Who showed that even as
Speaker 1: a quadriplegic, you can inspire, you can encourage, and you
Speaker 1: can evoke change. Ole miss does not wave the Confederate
Speaker 1: flag anymore, and it no longer plays Dixie with its band.
Speaker 1: It got rid of Colonel rebb as it's Scott and
Speaker 1: it's because the university, through the inspiration of a guy
Speaker 1: like Chucky, had the courage to look at itself and say,
Speaker 1: we need to portray who we are, not what the
Speaker 1: past says about us. Chucky's inspiration and courage changed the university,
Speaker 1: changed a perception, changed an approach, and through his generosity
Speaker 1: and inspiration, has changed the lives of thirty six people
Speaker 1: that have had the same type injury he has that
Speaker 1: have come behind him. Even in his death, because Chucky
Speaker 1: died two and a half three years later, his body
Speaker 1: just couldn't function anymore, but his legacy lives on because
Speaker 1: of courage and inspiration. So when you wake up tomorrow
Speaker 1: and you think about all of the things that are
Speaker 1: going around in your community and your society, and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: I'd sure like to help, but I don't know how
Speaker 1: If a quadriplegic who doesn't have two Nickels drubbed together,
Speaker 1: came through his courage and inspiration, change an entire university
Speaker 1: and enrich the lives of other quadriplegics, even thirty years
Speaker 1: after his own death. You need to look at yourself
Speaker 1: in the mirror. You need to have some courage, you
Speaker 1: need to be inspired, and you need to understand the
Speaker 1: only thing that's going to fix us is an army
Speaker 1: of normal folks. And it really does start with you.
Speaker 1: But you've got to have the temerity and the courage
Speaker 1: to do it. We'll see you next week.