Welcome to Cowbell Corner

Come on in to Cowbell Corner, a one-stop shop for news and information on Mississippi State athletics.

Allow me to reintroduce myself….as well as welcome you to Cowbell Corner – Sports Illustrated’s newest channel for all things Mississippi State and hopefully soon to be one of your favorite stops on the web.

Let’s go ahead and get the pleasantries out of the way, shall we?

I’m Joel Coleman, or to some of you, Joel T. Coleman (Woooooo!). For the crowd that gets that last reference, yes the Thunder & Lightning podcast will continue, but I digress.

For the last five years, I’ve been the Mississippi State beat writer for the Starkville Daily News. Odds are, that’s where a lot of you became familiar with my work. It was a fantastic five years. I saw Dak Prescott ascend to God-like status in Starkville, covered a couple of football coaching changes, watched on as Mississippi State men’s basketball built itself back into an NCAA Tournament team and witnessed more MSU baseball magic than I can even begin to get into here.

My Mississippi State story didn’t start five years ago though. Let’s go ahead and put all the cards on the table. If nothing else, when you come to this site from now on, I want to be known for giving you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So here it goes. I was basically born a Bulldog. I grew up 20 minutes west of StarkVegas in Ackerman. I’ve been watching Mississippi State athletics as far back as my almost-35-year-old mind can remember.

I went from a kid that idolized names like Moulds, Dampier and DuBose, to eventually being a Mississippi State student. I got an undergraduate (sports communication) and master‘s (sports administration) degree from MSU. I worked in the athletic department as a marketing graduate assistant. To say the very least, my background is wrapped in maroon and white.

Some circles might think all that is great when it comes to covering the Bulldogs. I have a solid grasp of this school and its history. I’ve lived the lows. I’ve seen the highs. There’s no doubt that’s a tremendous benefit when putting things into perspective.

On the other side, there might be those who hold my past against me. I might be labeled a homer. A person or two or three will think there’s no way this guy right here could ever be an objective voice regarding Mississippi State athletics.

For the former crowd, I hope to do you proud. For the latter bunch, I believe I’ll prove you wrong. It’s my pledge to all of you, right here and right now, that from this day forth on this page you’re going to get my all to give every single one of you the very best MSU coverage possible. I’m going to give you the news – both the good and the bad. Sometimes what you read and watch here will inform you or perhaps entertain you and make you smile. Other times, it’ll make you mad. The goal though is always the same and that is provide you with coverage you can always rely on, trust and hopefully, enjoy.

I’m not disillusioned. I know you have options when it comes to getting your Mississippi State fix. There are a lot of talented individuals on this beat. As a one-man show here (at least for now), it’d be incredibly naive for me to think or expect any of you to just turn all of your Bulldog attention to me at this site. However it’s my belief that, given time, you’ll have great reason to keep coming back here time and time again.

I’m going to try and find new ways to tell stories. I’m going to try to cover things in unique ways. Yes, that’s tough to do in 2020. What hasn’t already been done, right? But given the tools Sports Illustrated has armed me with, I think I can do just that. In the process, we can all build a community here that keeps coming back to interact, discuss all the hot topics and just have a good time. (P.S. – Go ahead and click that ‘Follow’ button in the top right-hand corner and let’s start the party.)

There’s another thing I want to point out. At the top of this very page sits those two big letters – ’SI’. I’ve got to be honest, it’s pretty darn cool that I’m bringing all this information to you under the Sports Illustrated banner.

You want to know the very first magazine I remember reading? A little rag called Sports Illustrated for Kids. I read it religiously. I remained an SI fan as I grew up. It has changed through the years as pretty much every media organization known to man has, however when I see Sports Illustrated, I see one of the two or three most recognizable brands in all of sports media. That’s not lost on me as I begin this venture. I’ve always had a respect for SI and the information that has come from its writers. I hope that sooner rather than later, I’ll have earned your respect as a writer under the SI flag myself now.

So yeah, welcome to Cowbell Corner. As many of you know, when Mississippi State athletics sends a player into the professional ranks, the school has a slogan – ‘Wherever you go, we go with you.’

Well in similar fashion, I hope those of you that have followed my work at the SDN and with Thunder & Lightning will now follow me here. And let’s pick up a bunch of others as we go along and make Cowbell Corner as turned up as a Davis Wade Stadium Saturday night in the fall.

Let’s do this.