After a tough loss to Division II Delta State and complaints about the overall football game day experience, Mississippi Valley State athletic director Alecia Shields-Gadson issued an open apology to fans, vowing the athletics department “will get this right.”
The AD’s apology was met with the usual banter in the HBCU space, including renewed calls for Mississippi Valley State to leave Division I football, citing the inability to compete in the FCS and SWAC.
Mississippi Valley State needs grace, not the peanut gallery
The readiness to pick on Mississippi Valley State while willfully — and in some cases, obtusely — ignoring the obstacles they are trying to overcome spits in the face of the spirit of HBCU history, culture, and community.
Mississippi Valley State opened its doors in the winter of 1950 as Mississippi Vocational College. That means, through the blessings of whoever spiritual guide you subscribe to, there are alumni from other HBCUs older than the school itself.
Even when picking a site for the new school, Carroll County residents were not pleased that a Black college would be placed on their turf.
The school was moved to Itta Bena, a smaller town far enough away, and still farther away from properly teaching Black students the vocational skills the powers that be hoped they would learn.
The relocation was an injury added to an insult, as Mississippi Valley State was founded to relieve pressure on the state’s larger and whiter institutions to integrate. That only lasted 12 years, as James Meredith risked life and limb to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962.
Mississippi Valley State still suffers from state neglect
If you think MVSU’s humble beginnings are just a sign of how things were in the past, the present is still just as sinister.
The school received $8.2 million from the state’s Institutions of Higher Learning funding system for the 2025-26 fiscal year. What can $8.2 million get any institution of higher learning in 2026?
Spoiler alert: Not much.
For far too long, the IHL has failed the state’s HBCUs. Rather than treating them as vital assets worthy of meaningful investment, it has too often treated them as institutions to be managed rather than strengthened, leaving them without the sustained support they deserve.
The school that gave the world Jerry Rice, made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament a handful of times, and became the first HBCU softball team to win an NCAA Division I tournament game, is not the historical sad sack some bad-faith actors would try to get you to believe.
MVSU deserves help, not scorn
What can Mississippi Valley State do to get back on track?
For starters, we all know it’s a money game, and alumni must do their part to give back and provide athletes with the facilities and resources they need to compete. They must also defend their beloved school from the derisive comments made by stakeholders from other schools who have their own set of problems to worry about.
Many have done just that. But the work can’t be completed alone.
The administration must also bear responsibility as well. An athletic department doesn’t find itself in this position if not for insufficient leadership to some degree. It must be better. It must also be held accountable for the decisions it has made (or not) that led to the dysfunction.
Suggesting MVSU move to D2 or D3 levels will not be a competitive lifeline if the people placed in leadership roles — from the university president to the athletic director, on down the line — fail to work in the best interests of the students and the athletes.
Hopefully, that’s changing.
If anyone is truly concerned about the health and welfare of Mississippi Valley State athletics, the above should give you an idea of why they struggle and why we all should be rooting for their success instead of making them a punch line to a tired, worn-out joke just for a few laughing emojis.
