A Letter From Mac

I remember opening the letter like it was yesterday.

I was a senior at Cabot High School trying to decide where to attend college. I had an idea that I might want to get involved in the world of Sports Information as a student worker and I was trying to decide what school was right for me. Several things happened to lead me to choose Ouachita Baptist University, but one of those things was a simple letter.

I received this letter from a man named Mac Sisson who was the Sports Information Director at Ouachita inviting me to join his staff as a student worker in the Sports Information Office should I choose Ouachita.

A letter from the head SID? To me? A high school student who had never written for a newspaper, done statistics or any radio? Yes, that’s exactly what it was. And that is exactly who he was.

Mac passed away from a sudden heart attack Monday morning, March 8, less than a mile from his house. It was the first time that I have lost someone that might be considered a mentor. I probably spent more time with Mac and the other guys (and girls -- there had to be girls in the office, and pretty ones at that) in our office during my four years at Ouachita than I did studying – but don’t tell my parents.

Mac was a man who cared enough for his alma mater to go the extra mile and a man who cared enough about those he worked with to make them go the extra mile.

And did we ever go the extra mile. Make that the extra hundreds of miles.

It was the 4:00 a.m. departures for every corner of the states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas during football season.

It was the twice-a-day eating at J.D.’s in Ada, Oklahoma, on the trips to play East Central (OK) University – all provided by the “White Envelope.”

It was the ritual of stopping at all historical markers on our trips including the statue of the world’s largest peanut in Durant, Oklahoma. One year, the peanut had been stolen and the rookies on the staff didn’t have the pleasure of seeing the large statue. Mac got an 11x17 poster of the peanut mailed to the office just so they wouldn’t feel completely out of the loop.

It was the speeding ticket he received in Idabel, Oklahoma – which had to be the ONLY time he ever broke the speed limit in all four years of travel.

It was the infamous 7:00 a.m. “press box set-up” meetings on Saturdays of home football games. Those were followed by the ensuing breakfast at Hardees’s for those who didn’t want to go back to the dorm and go back to sleep.

It was bringing him into the age of doing statistics on computer -- or it may be better to say it was doing them on the computer as he asked us to “modem” them to the opponents and conference office.

It was the DOS-Based computer, daisy wheel printer and both sizes of floppy disks.
It was Elvis, not “mixing your meats” (that would be not having two meats on any type of food), and posting engagement pictures from town newspapers that just didn’t make Mac’s cut (even if you were one of the workers in the office.)

It was learning how to write, how to tell the story of your teams, coaches and athletes and how to be a professional.

It was learning his way to title a story, how to indicate that there was a second page of a news release and how to signify that the news release was complete.

It was much, much more.

It was real-world, valuable experience that he afforded to so many students from which they most likely would not have benefitted if they had attended a larger university. From day one, our by-lines were in newspapers across the region. We were in contact with sports editors and sports directors at media outlets across Arkansas and surrounding states with on-the-job training.

It was having a surrogate mom and dad in he and Donna while you were away from your parents at college.

I don’t pretend to be alone in having these memories or this hurt. Mac had a huge sphere of influence spanning three decades at Ouachita and many different areas including sports and pageants. My story represents countless others who have seen Mac’s imprint on some aspect of their career path. For that direction and advice, a simple thank you doesn’t seem to suffice.

I saw Mac the day before he passed away. He and Donna live just a block away, but I saw him the most when he would pick Donna up from work every day. He would be reading the Daily Siftings-Herald with the window down according to the temperature outside. I would walk up and their brown lab Shelby would immediately start growling or barking.

I found a framed poster in a closet last week that one of Mac’s good friends, Larry Smith, had given him in 1978 when Mac’s football game program won first place in the nation in the NAIA Football Program contest. It had been in my car since Thursday, so I figured Sunday afternoon was as good a time as any to take it over. It was the last time I would see Mac.

Mac used to have a way to let his student workers know that they had done something that wasn’t quite right. I am lucky to say that I never received one of the pink “While You Were Out Slips” in my baskets that had the dreaded two words written as only Mac could write them – “See Me.”

It’s the only note that you didn’t want to get from Mac.

I never received one of those notes, but I owe a lot to that first note that I ever received from him. It helped seal my decision to attend Ouachita. It was an indication of the impact that Mac would have on me, just like he did on so many others.

Thanks, Mac, for everything. To put it lightly, you will be missed.

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