Sugar Bowl officials gave each player on both teams a portrait of themselves – drawn onto a sugar cube.
With football season just around the corner, many fans are thinking and talking about great games in Ole Miss football history. Two of the greatest came during the 1959 season, both against the same team.
On Halloween night in 1959, LSU’s Billy Cannon scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter on an 89-yard punt return, leading his team to a 7-3 defeat of the Ole Miss Rebels in Tiger Stadium. But the Rebels didn’t forget it.
So when Ole Miss and LSU met for the 26th Annual Sugar Bowl Classic on New Year’s Day in 1960, the Rebels were out for revenge and welcomed the rematch opportunity. The 1960 Sugar Bowl also marked the first Rebel game to be televised in color. In front of a crowd of 81,000 in New Orleans, plus millions more watching across the country, the Rebels shut out LSU 21-0.
Chancellor Emeritus Robert Khayat was a kicker and offensive lineman for the Rebels, and he recalled the awards dinner the day before the big game. Sugar Bowl officials gave each player on both teams a portrait of themselves – drawn onto a sugar cube.
Khayat wrapped his gift in plastic and put in the top drawer of a cabinet at his home in Moss Point for years before giving it to the athletics department.
“In those days, it was a big deal for a school to go to the Sugar Bowl,” he said. “It was such an unusual gift and I wanted to keep it. I believe I’m the only one from Ole Miss that has kept it all this time, and it may be the only one still in existence.”
The block of sugar given to Khayat is on display in the Ole Miss Athletics M-Club room, a little faded but fully intact, the perfect souvenir to commemorate such a sweet victory.