Most of you know that Billy “Dog” Brewer, long a friend of Designated Writers, a member of the Ole Miss All-Century football team as a star for Johnny Vaught’s stud squads of the late 1950s and the second winningest coach at his alma mater behind Vaught, passed away this week following a stroke that left him struggling for about four months.

I’ll write about him Sunday for The Times and News-Star and publish it here Monday because I liked Coach Brewer and if you knew him you likely did too, and if you didn’t know him but would have had the chance to, you would have liked him too. Unless…

Unless you are a Mississippi State fan. As a Rebel player and coach, he regularly beat Mississippi State like the proverbial rented mule; as a Rebel player (3-0) and coach, Dog was 11-3 against the Bulldogs. (Different story when he was the head coach at Louisiana Tech from 1980-82; the Starkville Bulldogs popped us by 20 in 1980. Dangit. But two years later, Tech would finish 10-3 as a 1-AA semifinalist.)

Somewhere in his neat and lived-in house off Jefferson Davis Parkway is a plaque I gave him that represents first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors feature writing competition from 1986, which I won because Nico van Thyn and the Shreveport Journal entered me; who knew there was such a thing? It was a feature on him the week of the LSU game, late-October of 1986. “Rebel With A Cause,” or something like that was the headline. This is back when the paper could afford such things, so I went to Oxford and stayed a couple of days: I remember eating lunch with Coach Brewer at the training table at Ole Miss, going to practice, talking to lots of players and Rebel faithful, that kind of thing. It was a big game for him in Tiger Stadium that Saturday night, Nov. 1, 1986. A lot of former Tech assistants were with him on the Rebel sideline.

Ole Miss won, 21-19, to improve to 6-2-1. LSU missed a field goal late. First time Ole Miss had won in Baton Rouge since 1968.

The happiest I ever saw him might have been after that game.

(The Rebels would lose to Tennessee, beat Mississippi State by three touchdowns and beat Texas Tech in the Independence Bowl to finish 8-3-1. LSU finished as SEC champs and got beaten by Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl.)

-30-