An Army of Normal Folks - The Story of Chucky Mullins, Brad Gaines, and the Sigma Nu Charity Bowl

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

For our "Shop Talk" series, Coach Bill Courtney shares the story of an unlikely hero who inspired the largest collegiate philanthropy event in the country.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal folks and welcome to Shop Talk Two of Two. I hope you enjoyed the first one and I hope you enjoy this one. Today, we're going to talk about something that's really near and dear to my heart and it's the story of Chuckie Mullins and Brad Gaines and the Sigma New Charity Bowl. And we'll dive into that right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. John Stewart is back in the host chair at The Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. The Daily Show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's

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Welcome back back everybody. Most of you should know I'm an Ole Miss guy. And I want to tell you about maybe one of the most formative experiences I had in college. They really had nothing to do with me. On October 28th, 1989, during Ole Miss's homecoming game against Vanderbilt. A guy named Chuckie Mullins playing safety came up to break a pass and he put his head in the back of Brad Gaines. Brad Gaines was a fullback for Vanderbilt, and he was definitely going to be

a top three pick, a top three round pick. He was a he was their stud. Chuckie smoked them right on about the five or six yard line. And the ball came loose. Vaught Hemingway went nuts because it broke up a big pass at a critical juncture. Everybody started going back to their huddles and we were ready for the next play,

except Chucky didn't get up. He laid there. I was on the sideline that day. I was not in the stands and I remember thinking, wow, he's knocked out cold. Because as he lay on his back, his elbow was still on the ground, but his forearm was perpendicular to the ground. And when his arm fell to the ground, it just fell. Without any resistance.

And so I knew this guy was just out cold. And I'd seen that before in football two times and it's scary, but, you know, it's unfortunately part of the game. Roy Lee Mullins, Chucky, was laying there. And ironically, the the head trainer for Ole Miss back then was Leroy Mullins. And Mr. Mullins ran out to him like they always do when somebody's hurt. When he got there, you could tell it was more than just passed out. He frantically was waving arms and Team

Dot came off the sideline. In a matter of instance, there was 10 people around Chuckie. Chuckie was a a freshman number 38. And to be honest with you, not many of us even knew the kid's name. He was a second string guy and he was in on a nickel package. About 10 minutes later. And you know how it is when somebody gets hurt, you can tell it's serious in a football stadium. It goes from wild and reverently and loud to you can hear a pin drop. There's 50,000 people sitting there trying to figure out what's going on. And they roll out the back then they

didn't have like the motorized catered cars. They just rolled a stretcher out onto the five-yard line and put them up on it and they actually passed me. And when they passed me, obviously I'm gawking like any kid would. And they'd clipped Chuckie's face mask at the jaw clip but kept the clips on the top forehead part of his helmet. So they basically clipped the clips off and folded his face mask like you would the hood of a car and had him all taped down and so he couldn't move. And his face was so swollen that his cheeks had protruded outside the plastic shell of the helmet. It was awful. And I knew like everybody else in the stadium knew that this is probably a neck injury.

Play resume, little by little, gets louder. People forget it and keep playing. And then like 12 minutes later from the other end zone outside the stadium, the helicopter picks up and wheels north toward Memphis. And it was like a second hush fell over because everybody knew then, you know, this is bad. The next day we found out that this kid, Chuckie Mullins had literally disintegrated the top four vertebrae in his neck and he was a quadriplegic. The university and the alums and students really rallied around him and in very short

order in 1989, there was well over a million dollars raised. The university bought him a house, built it off campus, and his rehab was a years, years and a half long rehab. And Brad Gaines, this big, burly, badass football player, went to Baptist Hospital, Memphis, and actually slept in his car in the parking lot for two nights, keeping vigil over Chucky. Brad says he'll never forget the day he went to visit him and he was wearing his Vanderbilt letter jacket and the elevator doors parted and as Brad walked into the hallway to go down to see Chucky, it was just filled with Ole Miss people and it's just like he could, you know, everybody talking on the hallway over coffee and it just was a hush.

And, um, Chucky could barely talk. He was on a ventilator, but he could put his hand over a button on the ventilator and say very short words and Brad knelt down and prayed for him and with him. And then came up and with tears in his eyes, told him I'm sorry he was. And Chucky pushes button and whispered in a gargly fashion, not your fault. You go play ball. And that's kind of what Chucky was. At the same time, Ole Miss was struggling with some problems. The student body always raved Confederate flags.

The band played Dixie about 19 times a game. The university was struggling with, we're not a racist university, but what we're portraying can certainly be used against people to say we're racist in recruiting and other things, but are we really portraying who we are as a university? And at this weird time where we're struggling all that, here's this black kid from Russell ville, Arkansas, who doesn't have two nickels rubbed together, that the entire university is bracing as their favorite son. Next to Archie Manning, there's no bigger name at the university than the old Miss, then Chuckie Mullins.

And it happened overnight. And it wasn't just because this kid got hurt. It was because his attitude about being hurt and his courage. Later that year, Ole Miss played in the Liberty Bowl against Air Force and they had a quarterback named D. Dallas who was number two in the Heisman Balloting and Air Force was favored by 16 points and right before the game to everybody's surprise, Chucky rolled in a wheelchair into the locker room and there wasn't a man in there that didn't have tears streaming down his face.

And he had this infectious smile and he rolled in and he looked at the team and he put his hand over his little thing and he said as loud as he could. It's time. Ole Miss beat the crap out of Air Force that night. And Billy Brewer, that coach that Tom said, there wasn't a team in the country that could have beat those kids that day after Chuckie rolled in and told them it's time. There was just so much inspiration from his courage and his attitude. Shortly after Chuckie got hurt, there was this kid in Lauderdale, Mississippi, named Alan Moore, a high school kid, a junior who actually had the exact same injury that Chucky did,

but it was from a very poor high school, again, in Lauderdale, and he had no money. They didn't even have enough money for a wheelchair form. He couldn't build a ramp on his house. We were sitting around in the Fertility House one day with a friend of mine, John Quacken, some other guys and read that story on the day of the Misscipian and John said, you know, we should do something, you know, an army of normal folks. We should do something for this kid. And so I went to Coach Brewer because I had a relationship with him.

I went to Sparky Brewer and the dean of Students at the time who got me in front of the chancellor. And we came up with the idea of playing what this thing was going to be called was a charity bowl, which is our fraternity in a full padded football game against another fraternity and sell tickets and raise money and give it to this kid named Alan Moore in honor of Chuckie Mullins. And so I actually got to meet with Chucky and I told him the plan. I said, I don't want you to feel disrespected that we're raising money for somebody else. And he looked at me and he said, it's time.

Chills ran through me when he said that big smile. He wanted us to go raise money for someone else. Because he knew he was taking care of. Just kind of guy was. So we put together this football game, long story short. My fraternity run the football game and we raised $15,000. That was in 1989. Today, they still play that game

called the charity ball once a year, and it has grown to be the largest Greek philanthropy project in the entire United States. And as today it has raised over three and a half million dollars for quadriplegics who had no hope of good care and wheelchairs and ramps and wheelchair accessible vehicles all in the honor of a kid named Chuckie Mullins. Why am I telling you the story? Why is this shop talk? One, it doesn't matter who you are or what happens to you or what challenges you have in the world. If you keep a positive attitude and have the temerity to face all obstacles with courage,

you can change people's lives. Chuckie changed an entire generation of lives of people at Ole Miss because of his courage, because of his inspiration, because of his generosity, and because of his spirit. To this very day, every Ole Miss football team, when they run out of the tunnel at Vault Hammingway Stadium, run their head over a copper bust of Chuck E's Head and underneath it. It just says never give up I Think we should always think about the story of Chuck E. Mullins and Brad Gaines and the and the kids at Ole Miss who've raised three and a half million dollars all who took a horrible incident and turned it into a

massive outpouring of generosity and inspiration all because of a guy named Chuckie Mullins who showed that even as a quadriplegic you can inspire, you can encourage, and you can evoke change. Ole Miss does not wave the Confederate flag anymore and it no longer plays Dixie with its band. It got rid of Colonel Rubb as its mascot. And it's because the university, through the inspiration of a guy like Chucky,

had the courage to look at itself and say, we need to portray who we are, not what the past says about us. Chuckie's inspiration and courage changed and inspiration has changed the lives of 36 people that have had the same type injury he has that have come behind him, even in his death, because Chuckie died two and a half, three years later, his body just couldn't function anymore, but his legacy lives on because of courage and inspiration. So when you wake up tomorrow and you think about all of the things that are going around

in your community and your society and you're like, man, I'd sure like to help, but I don't know how. If a quadriplegic who doesn't have two nickels rubbed together, can through his courage and inspiration change an entire university and enrich the lives of other quadriplegics even 30 years after his own death. You need to look at yourself in the mirror. You need to have some courage. You need to be inspired and you need to understand the only thing that's going to fix us is an army of normal folks and it really does start with you But you got to have the temerity and the courage to do it We'll see you next week

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