Dick Hitt Drive Honors MC Alumnus and Coach

Dick Hitt’s distinguished career in the sports world as an athlete, coach and administrator will be spotlighted at Mississippi College on September 11.

MC leaders, Hitt family members and friends will gather for ceremonies that Saturday to dedicate a street in his honor on the Clinton campus that Saturday.

Events surrounding the naming of Dick Hitt Drive near the A.E. Wood Coliseum will occur at 4 p.m. prior to the MC-Belhaven Blazers football game, the 2010 home opener for the Choctaws. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m.  The newly named street will intersect with Capitol Street in front of the school’s basketball arena.

“What a privilege and honor for a guy who’s done so many things in his lifetime to help Mississippi College,” said MC Athletic Director Mike Jones. “It’s a neat thing. We’re excited about it. This will be a great day.”

Other honors have come his way before. Hitt, who died in 1986 at the age of 80, is a member of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in Jackson. Other names in the hall’s category of sports administrator include former athletic directors Roland Dale of Southern Miss, Warner Alford of Ole Miss, and Walter Reed of Jackson State.

Hazel Newman, a physical education teacher at MC from 1953 until 1979, says the newest honor for Dick Hitt will be a nice reminder of someone who’s been a big part of the Christian university’s family for many years. “I’m glad to hear the street is being named after him.”

Thomas Stanfield “Dick” Hitt was a four-sport letterman at MC from 1926 until 1928 and earned his bachelor’s degree in 1932 back when America was struggling in the midst of the Great Depression.

MC Blue and Gold was practically in Hitt’s blood at birth. He and his brothers, James, Joel and Bruce, were known as the four Hitt Brothers and all were prominent student-athletes at MC. They were the sons of MC mathematics professor Joel Reuben Hitt, who served as the school’s lone full-time math teacher from 1918 until 1943. The longtime professor also served as a preacher at Mississippi country church where Hazel Newman attended in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Athletics was the true calling for Dick Hitt, who played football, basketball and other sports at Mississippi College. He later served as an assistant coach at Mississippi College for five years. His 31-year coaching career took Hitt to a number of stops around the nation, including Biloxi High, Mississippi State University, the University of Wyoming, the University of Tennessee and Copiah-Lincoln Junior College. He served as the Bulldogs basketball coach for eight years beginning in 1939, including a 14-8 season in 1942-43 when the Bulldogs finished fourth in the Southeastern Conference. At his alma mater in Clinton, Hitt organized the Choctaws Booster Club and served as its first president.

 Football fans may remember Hitt because he served as manager of Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium from 1961 until 1974. Back then, SEC teams like Ole Miss and Mississippi State were regular visitors to the stadium that often was packed for big football games. Built in 1941, the stadium in Jackson expanded to more than 60,000 seats in 1980.

For the late Dick Hitt and family members, having a street in his name on the MC campus  “will be a very deserving honor,” said Clinton resident Ed McDonald, a 1948 Mississippi College alumnus.