Tim Miller

It was good to see you at the Sugar Bowl.

Been wanting to have you on the pod.

The Barn was, I've been recommending it, baby.

It was one of the best books I've read in the last couple years.

And I am going to want to get into that with you in depth.

But first, for listeners who aren't like true South super fans, you know, and are like, who the hell is this guy on a politics podcast?

Can you give us a little who's right, Thompson?

And what might you have to say about our political moment?

Your writing has been mostly in sports writing and profiles.

You've done a bunch of just amazing profiles.

But I probably had read some of your stuff not kind of noticing the byline.

But the first time I was like, now, who the fuck wrote this?

Was a series you wrote for ESPN called Ghosts of Mississippi.

And it referenced your dad.

So we'll start with that.

This is how it started.

When I was five or six, because my dad's political activism in the Mississippi Delta, local white supremacists burned a cross in our front yard.

My parents had a decision to make, wake me or let me sleep.

They chose sleep.

And you then go into the story of basically the 1962 Ole Miss football team and an exceptionally good football team and that season and how it intersected with James Meredith desegregating the school.