Paige Cothren said he had a lot more stories to tell after finishing up his book, &uot;Walk Carefully Around the Dead,&uot; a tribute to his playing days at Ole Miss and more specifically to former Ole Miss freshman coach Wobble Davidson.

Cothren said after the book came out he would come across former teammates with many more stories to tell.

And there are some good ones in Cothren’s latest book titled, &uot;An Academy Called Pain.&uot;

The title has to deal with playing in pain because back in those days of unlimited scholarships, if you didn’t play in pain, there were plenty of people to take your place.

But it seems to me some of Cothren’s worst pain came off the field.

He talks about the M-Club Initiation.

Freshmen had their own teams back then, so it wasn’t until you were a sophomore that you experienced what would today be called hazing and would end up in a lawsuit.

Cothren and his fellow sophomores were told to meet outside the M-Club hallway at 11 p.m. wearing only blue jeans.

Cothren was the first in line and the first to face upperclassman Bobby &uot;Slick&uot; McCool, a running back from Cleveland who saw his playing time cut because Cothren did such a great job of blocking in the backfield and played better defense.

The sophomores then did more than bare their souls, as they shedded their jeans and grabbed their ankles at the M-Club doorway. &160;A baseball bat shaved down to a 2-inch paddle was used on Cothren by McCool from a running distance.

From there the players had tape wrapped around their eyes and were told to drink something and hold it down for 10 seconds.

Cothren just made it to 10 before releasing what he later found out to be asafetida, a yellow-brown bitter, resinous material derived from the roots of several plants.

But that wasn’t it. Then came licks with coat hangers. The final torture consisted of being covered from the neck down in plaster-of-paris.

Cothren’s other bit of pain came when he was a young man in Crosby and one of the Poole cows went into a neighbor’s yard. That neighbor had a ram, but the owner told Cothren he wouldn’t bother him.

The ram butted Cothren four times before the youngster finally bulldogged him down for the owner to come and rescue him. The ram, that is.

The irony of the story is that eight years later, Cothren would become a Los Angeles Ram.

One interesting story in the book tells of how Steve Spurrier had narrowed his choices to Ole Miss and Florida. He would go on and win the Heisman Trophy at Florida, where he now coaches a national power.

According to Cothren, Spurrier’s first choice was Ole Miss. His father was a preacher and on a final visit by Rebel coaches, the preacher wanted to know if the coaches could find him a church in or near Oxford. The staff met and had to tell Mr. Spurrier they couldn’t do it. That’s when Steve chose Florida.

Can you imagine any big program being offered that same dilemma today for a blue chipper? Welcome to the Church of What’s Happening Now.

Needless to say the book is enjoyable and mentions several Natchez players. Cothren spent his senior year at Natchez High.

There are plenty of fun stories about the athletic Poole family as well. It’s fun to see just how much the game has changed. And it’s kind of sad. Unless you’re going through initiation.

Joey Martin is sports editor of The Democrat. He can be reached by calling 446-5172 ext. 232 or at joey.martin@natchezdemocrat.com.