Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Jackson State offers Therriault an oasis


Therriault's Journey To Redemption

In this unlikely story of redemption, Casey Therriault, a white QB from Michigan finds a home and fans at Jackson State a historically-black university.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice."

-- Martin Luther King Jr., Aug. 28, 1963


JACKSON, Miss. -- Scenes from an oasis:

A fence separated the old black woman from the football field, but it didn't stop her. She wanted to meet the young white quarterback. She asked the coach to bring him over. If you don't have a place to go for Thanksgiving, the old woman told the quarterback through the fence, we will feed you.

In the stands in Memphis, Tenn., weeks earlier, a black stranger struck up a conversation with the white quarterback's father. He was easy to pick out, after all, a pale face in a section full of dark faces. By the end of the game, the quarterback's father had been invited to stay at the stranger's house for the next home game.

Everyone wanted to reach out to the white quarterback. He had come hundreds of miles from his native Michigan to this strange place -- to Jackson State University....

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Note: Exceptionally great story coming from the Southwestern Athletic Conference on quarterback Casey Therriault and the Jackson State University Tigers. Beautiful job by Pat Forde, ESPN.com.

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