The University of Mississippi was forced to close, and life for those in the community changed for weeks due to Winter Storm Fern. Conditioned to expect the unexpected, the Rebels shifted their approach to winter training.
Tennis was among the sports affected at UM. Star freshman Pietro Pampanin says he had never seen or experienced a winter storm of Fern’s magnitude.
“I’m from Italy, and there is nothing that has happened that is similar to this,” Pampanin said. “So when I saw this, I was pretty surprised, because I didn’t know if we could practice.”
Outdoors, they could not practice, but the team adjusted by moving their training to indoor facilities, which presented a different challenge. Pampanin explained how the game is faster on indoor courts because the ball moves much more quickly. Still, he noted that while he prefers outdoor tennis, he was grateful to have the opportunity to continue on the indoor courts.
Pietro Pampanin prepares to strike the ball in a match against Tulane on Jan. 23 at William F. Galtney Indoor Tennis Center. Photo courtesy Julie Graves/Ole Miss Athletics.
“We actually are very lucky because (with Ole Miss) we have one of the best campuses in the country,” Pampanin said. “The indoor courts are very useful for us. We could practice indoors, we could have the matches indoors, we could have the start of the season indoors.”
When Fern hit Oxford, Pampanin and the tennis team were in Homewood, Ala., for a match against Samford University. The Rebels were able to extend their stay at Samford until they had to leave for a Feb. 1 match against Dayton in Ohio.
The Rebels beat both the Bulldogs and the Flyers, and by the time they returned home on Wednesday, Feb. 4, the worst of the storm had already passed. Of course, Pampanin still noted that the storm’s damage on campus was starkly noticeable.
“It was pretty strange to come here and see all the trees down and everything,” Pampanin said. “But I knew as soon as we came back (and) I saw the people working to make order and to make it better, I felt safe, even if the situation was horrible.”
Other sports were forced to relocate games and practices to cities outside of Mississippi. The women’s basketball team was safe with both water and electricity in Birmingham, Ala., where they defeated No. 5 Vanderbilt and Auburn in neutral site games.
Head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin told fans that her team had rallied with a renewed sense of vigor to inspire Oxford.
“I told the team that this needed to be our way to show that we are fighting alongside the people that are still there,” McPhee-McCuin said. “We are lifting them up and wanted to try to bring them some joy.”
Prior to the storm, the Ole Miss Rifle team defeated No. 12 Ohio State on Jan. 25. The following week, they were forced to cancel matches against Navy and Georgia Southern and had to severely limit practices leading up to the Patriot Rifle Conference Tournament. Shaner said that Ohio State, who also competed in the tournament, had to deal with closures and shutdowns relating to the weather, too.
“(We) basically had a week off. Unfortunately, Ohio (State) also got hit with a pretty major snowstorm, so they had their campus shut down, as well,” Ole Miss Rifle head coach Will Shaner said. “So the girls had some time off, which of course is not always ideal because we’re trying to get ready for conference championships.”
Ole Miss Baseball season officially starts on Feb. 13, so head coach Mike Bianco and the team found themselves in a tough spot. Bianco used the opportunity to volunteer at Oxford Love Packs with the team.
“Obviously, (it’s) a different preseason than we’re used to and then I would be remiss if I didn’t say a big thank you to mayor Robyn Tannehill,” Bianco said at baseball media day on Tuesday. “Of course, all the city and county officials, the lineman, all the first responders and workers … trying to get us through the terrible storm.”
All of these Ole Miss sports teams, whether they were still holding practice or unable to meet in-person, embraced the mentality that women’s basketball star Christeen Iwuala summed up perfectly in her Vanderbilt ESPN postgame interview.
“The energy that we had today and the reason why we’re doing it: We’re doing it for the city of Oxford,” Iwuala said. “We had a really rough patch, (a) really rough winter storm … so we’re just doing it for the city of Oxford.”
