... A close friend of mine in the newspaper business is fond of saying that the presidency of a Mississippi university is as near to royalty as we have in this state and a far more desirable job that being governor....
...With retirements already announced by Dr. Lee, USM president Dr. Shelby Thames and the long tenure and aging of Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat, it could well be that the state College Board is shopping for leaders for the state's "Big Three" universities at the same time.
That doesn't bode well for the process, but it's a likely scenario....
This is the likely reason the IHL gave the USM president an extra year. They want to focus on the State and Ole Miss presidential searches. At best, USM doesn't seem to mean a thing to the IHL. The deeper the hole gets at USM, the bigger the shovel they use.