Today I had the privilege of sitting down with our new head football coach and gaining some important insight into how he plans to run the Golden Eagle football team. Ellis Johnson, who spent some time with the Golden Eagles as a defensive coordinator, comes to Southern Miss from South Carolina.

In our conversation, new head coach Johnson shares his football philosophy, what made him decide to return to the university, what Golden Eagle fans can expect and where he plans to lead his new team.

I am excited to see his passion for Southern Miss take our Golden Eagles to new heights.

Click here to read the full story about Ellis Johnson on Southern Miss Now.

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If you want to see research in action at Southern Miss, one of the best places to look is the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials.

From its labs come solutions for real-world problems like dispersing oil spills – from the massive scale of Deepwater Horizon to smaller, more common incidents that occur every day.

The school’s director, Dr. Robert Lochhead, emphasizes that its dispersants are plant-based and biodegradable, and will disperse all oils. These polymer dispersants love water and stick to oily surfaces, where microbes then break down both the oil and the dispersants themselves.

One of keys to commercializing the product is the delivery system. “How do you make a kit you put on every oil rig, every tanker and you put next to every pipeline so that in the event of a spill, you can apply that?” he says. “If you were the person there at the spill, what’s the best way to apply … depending on the size of the spill … and the equipment you have?”

A broader goal for Lochhead, and the university, is to “educate the 21st century scientific work force. We want to develop a cadre and expertise here that will attract companies and give us jobs at Southern Mississippi.”

Lochead says, despite the serious nature of the crises his researchers are addressing, that the task is a fun one.

Sustainable solutions, the promise of job creation and an enjoyable work environment. That’s research, Southern Miss-style.

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Senior Associate Athletic Director Jeff Hammond spent 32 years in the Army, retiring as a general.

Now the former Southern Miss quarterback and football captain is putting his leadership skills to good use in creating new opportunities for students, alumni and fans to connect with the University’s student-athletes and athletic programs.

With input from a graduate class in sports management, Hammond created the Student Eagle Club, a group of 2,500 students who are passionate about the Golden Eagles.

Perks of the club are priority seating at football games, a T-shirt, discounts at area restaurants and businesses, and a catered tailgate in The District for each home game. The club recently donated $2,500 to the Pride of Mississippi Marching Band.

Hammond has also overseen increases in giving (from $1.4 million to $2.1 million) and membership (250) to the Eagle Club. His message to members: It’s not just about seating and tickets, it’s about investing in student-athletes through scholarships.

“Heck, our football team graduated 84 percent last year,” he says. “They’re good kids; we’re doing the right thing.” Eagle Club members, he continues, are “buying stock in your university.”

As he meets with alumni and friends, he reminds them that Southern Miss is “the great university, located in the great place. … We’ve just got to reach out and touch these people, because once you touch them, it rekindles everything good, and the magic comes back. …”

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Erick Brown, Student Government Association president, may not be sure of his exact destination, but he’s clearly a man who knows where he’s headed.

The sociology major from Columbus, Miss., plans to attend medical school through the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program after graduating from Southern Miss. The program requires physicians to make a four-year commitment to practice in an underserved area of the state.

“I thought it would be the best place to put my efforts,” Erick says. “Hopefully I will be a country doctor in a little ‘ol country town, and hopefully affect some lives that way.”

Erick has already had a positive impact on campus.  A few months into his tenure, he is helping to institute a more restrictive smoking policy, implementing plans to involve more students in SGA and assisting in resolving everyday issues that students encounter.

Crediting his SGA predecessors J.R. Robinson and Kasey Mitchell as mentors, Erick says he’s just “hoping to pay forward some of the things that were invested in me after first getting here at Southern Miss.”

His advice to new students is positively Shakespearean: “Be yourself; be open to change yourself, but don’t lose yourself. Try to become the person you know you can be or the person you want to be.”

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