Itta Bena, Mississippi · Founded 1950 · Delta Devils
“The tiny Delta school where Jerry Rice became "World" — 450 acres in Itta Bena with the loudest claim in football history.”
The band's January 20, 2025 performance at Capital One Arena — the only HBCU band at the 60th inauguration, playing "Before I Let Go" to a standing ovation.
MGMM's full field show at the 2024 HBCU Labor Day Classic Battle of the Bands, in 4K (A1 Media).
KillaKevProd's 4K cut of the 2024 Labor Day Classic BOTB field show — a second angle on the Machine.
The 2024 Machine playing 'In The Ghetto' in the stands — the fifth-quarter sound Valley is known for (A1 Media).
MGMM's halftime set at the 2023 National Battle of the Bands in Houston — Valley confirmed on the 2023 lineup alongside FAMU, Southern, and Tennessee State.
MGMM's full field show at the September 6, 2026 HBCU Labor Day Classic Battle of the Bands, in 4K.
The 2023 Circle City Classic halftime showdown against North Carolina Central's Sound Machine — MVSU at full show-style power.
MGMM's halftime set at the 2023 National Battle of the Bands in Houston, Texas.
A second angle of the Mean Green at the September 2026 Labor Day Classic battle of the bands.
The band's stadium entrance in Itta Bena on September 27, 2024, ahead of the Alcorn State rivalry game.
The Mean Green marching into Rice-Totten Stadium for the Jackson State game, Fall 2025.
A stands classic: the Mean Green and the Satin Dolls serenading Jackson State as the Tigers leave the field at halftime of the 2012 homecoming game.
Class of 1984. The greatest wide receiver in NFL history — 3 Super Bowls with the 49ers, career records for receptions, yards, and TDs. Arrived at MVSU on his only scholarship offer, set 18 NCAA records, finished ninth in the 1984 Heisman vote, and was drafted 16th overall in 1985. College Football Hall of Fame 2006, Pro Football Hall of Fame 2010.
Class of 1960. Hall of Fame defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams who coined the term "sack"; the NFL's annual sack-leader award is named the Deacon Jones Award. Attended both South Carolina State and Mississippi Valley State.
Class of 1985. The quarterback half of the Satellite Express — 58 touchdown passes in 1984, 50+ Division I-AA passing records, College Football Hall of Fame 2005. Later head coach of the Delta Devils (2002–2009) in a stadium named for him.
Class of 1975. Former NFL quarterback (Tampa Bay Buccaneers); his No. 18 is retired at MVSU.
Class of 1992. NFL cornerback with a long pro career, one of 25+ MVSU alumni to play in the league.
Class of 1987. Former NFL linebacker whose No. 66 is retired at MVSU; later a college football coach.
Class of 1975. Former NFL wide receiver from the early Valley pro pipeline.
Class of 1984. Former NFL linebacker (1984–1989), best known with the New Orleans Saints.
Class of 1972. Former NFL linebacker.
Class of 1982. Former NFL defensive back.
Class of 1976. Former NFL defensive back.
Former NFL player out of the Valley program.
Former NFL player out of the Valley program.
Former NFL player out of the Valley program.
Class of 1992. Former NBA and EuroLeague basketball player; a legendary Valley scorer.
Class of 1991. Former Devilettes women's basketball star who once held the NCAA Division I career scoring record.
Class of 1988. Head basketball coach at the University of Arkansas–Pine Bluff.
Class of 1960. Former U.S. Representative from Indiana (1982–1985) and former city clerk of Gary, Indiana.
Democratic Mississippi State Senator since 1993.
Class of 1964. Democratic Mississippi state representative since 1993.
Class of 2000. Mayor of Metcalfe, Mississippi, and former CFL running back.
On April 5, 1946, Governor Thomas L. Bailey signed House Bill 700 creating Mississippi Vocational College. The Mississippi Legislature's real motive was plain: with legal challenges mounting against segregation (Brown v. Board would land in 1954), the state hoped a new Black institution would siphon African-American applicants away from the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State, and Southern Miss. The word "vocational" was a deliberate political sop — it told white opponents of Black higher education that the school would mostly train Black people for blue-collar work.
The proposed site was moved to Itta Bena, but even that town objected to a Black institution sitting too close to downtown — so the final site was chosen away from the town center, on cheap, uncultivable land. The university still sits on that ground today, roughly one mile northeast of Itta Bena along U.S. Highway 82: a school literally placed where it was tolerated, not wanted.
On February 10, 1950, Governor Fielding L. Wright joined Dr. James Herbert White to turn the first spades of dirt at the birth ceremony of Mississippi Vocational College. White, named the first president on March 1, was a well-known fundraiser who was essentially handed empty Delta farmland and told to build a college. He would serve 21 years, and the campus library still carries his name.
In the summer of 1950, before the campus was ready, more than 200 in-service teachers came to the Leflore County Training School in Itta Bena for classes — the school's founding mission was training rural and elementary school teachers, plus vocational training. The first real academic year opened that fall with just 14 regular students and seven faculty members, offering Bachelor of Science degrees in 14 areas and running Extension Services across the Delta.
The college's first graduating class walked in 1953: twelve graduates. Dr. White's formal inauguration was held December 6, 1953. That same year the Delta Devils started playing football as an independent, beginning a program that would spend its first decades as the SWAC's doormat — a fact that makes what came later almost unbelievable.
Doug Porter — a future College Football Hall of Fame member — coached Valley football in the early 1960s (1961–1965 per prior research, not re-verified). The same year, Russell Boone, a St. Louis native with a drum-corps background, rebirthed the marching band and broke it away from traditional military-style marching toward drum-corps showmanship, "atmospheric ornamentation," and modern drill design. The band played football in the South Central Athletic Conference from 1954 to 1963 before going independent.
In 1964 the Board of Trustees authorized the school to offer liberal arts, science, and education degrees — breaking out of the vocational box the legislature had put it in. The name changed to Mississippi Valley State College, matching its broadened mission. It was the first real step toward the university it would become.
The Mean Green Marching Machine is credited in prior research with marching in the 1965 Tournament of Roses Parade — the first African-American band ever to do so. The 'first African American band in the Tournament of Roses parade' distinction is confirmed by MVSU Athletics; the specific year and the additional parade appearances cited in earlier drafts (two Rose Bowl parades, two Indianapolis 500 Festival parades, the 2008 NCAA basketball tournament) were not re-verified in this pass.
In 1968 the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools granted the college full regional accreditation — the stamp of legitimacy the young school had been working toward since 1950. Regional accreditation was reaffirmed in 1972 and again in 1982.
In February 1969, about 800 students — men and women — organized a nonviolent boycott protesting President White's administration. Their demands: required courses in Black history, more library books by Black writers, remedial courses in English and math, prominent Black speakers on campus, and fewer curfew restrictions. It was the civil rights movement arriving at the school's own front door, two decades into White's presidency.
Mississippi Valley State joined the Southwestern Athletic Conference in 1969 and has never left. It entered as the smallest, poorest, newest school in a league of giants — Grambling, Jackson State, Southern — and spent most of the next decade getting beaten up by all of them.
Dr. James Herbert White retired on June 30, 1971, after 21 years of building the school from Delta dirt. On July 1, Dr. Earnest A. Boykins became the second president. Boykins would steer the school through its biggest transformation yet — the push for full university status.
On March 15, 1974, Governor William A. Waller signed the bill granting university status, and Mississippi Vocational College — by then Mississippi Valley State College — became Mississippi Valley State University. Two years later, in 1976, the school offered its first graduate courses. The vocational-training school the legislature had imagined was officially dead; a comprehensive university stood in its place.
MVSU hired Archie Cooley — a Mississippi native who had played both ways at Jackson State under John Merritt — as head football coach in 1980. Nicknamed "The Gunslinger," Cooley installed a five-wide-receiver, no-huddle passing offense years before the rest of college football caught on. The offense he built would change the sport's record books forever.
Cooley was the only college coach who came to Crawford, Mississippi, to visit Jerry Rice in person — and MVSU was Rice's only scholarship offer. At his older brother Tom's urging, Rice arrived in Itta Bena in 1981 and earned the nickname "World" because there wasn't a ball in the world he couldn't catch. Redshirt freshman quarterback Willie "Satellite" Totten joined him, and together they became "The Satellite Express."
The 1984 Delta Devils were the most explosive offense college football had ever seen. Rice caught 112 passes for 1,845 yards and 27 touchdowns in 11 games — NCAA marks across all divisions. Totten threw 58 touchdown passes. The team averaged 60.9 points per game, a Division I-AA record that still stands. They opened by hanging 86–0 on Kentucky State (Rice: 17 catches, 294 yards, 5 TDs; Totten: 536 yards, 9 TDs), beat Jackson State — their first win over the Tigers since 1954 — and made the program's only Division I-AA playoff appearance, falling 66–19 to Louisiana Tech.
In the 1985 NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers took Jerry Rice in the first round. He would become the most prolific wide receiver in NFL history — three Super Bowl championships, the career records for receptions, yards, and touchdowns — and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010. Totten entered the College Football Hall of Fame in 2005. Together they made the smallest school in the SWAC the most famous.
Dr. Lester C. Newman, a Southern University alumnus who came over from Johnson C. Smith in Charlotte, became the fifth president in 1998, succeeding William W. Sutton's ten-year run. By 2007 the faculty senate had turned on him, voting 33–1 with one abstention in a no-confidence measure over chain-of-command, pay-scale, and professional-courtesy complaints. Newman stayed in the job through 2007, then gave way to an acting president.
Willie Totten returned to Itta Bena as head football coach from 2002 to 2009, going 31–57 with back-to-back winning seasons in 2005 and 2006 — the last winning seasons the Valley has had. Magnolia Stadium had already been rechristened Rice–Totten Stadium in spring 1999 for him and Jerry Rice, making Totten one of the rare coaches anywhere to lead a team in a stadium bearing his own name — a list that includes Bear Bryant, LaVell Edwards, and Eddie Robinson. After 2009 he coached at Albany State and Alabama A&M.
Dr. Donna H. Oliver took office January 1, 2009, as MVSU's sixth president — and its first woman. She served through 2012. After a brief acting stint by Dr. Al Rankins Jr. in 2013, Dr. William B. Bynum Jr. became the seventh president that November; he later departed for the Jackson State presidency.
MVSU announced $17.5 million in renovations and expansion of the R.W. Harrison HPER Complex — exterior repairs, life-safety and accessibility upgrades, with 2,700 seats for athletic events and 2,800 for programs like commencement. It was the first major work on the building since it opened in 1977.
Dr. Jerryl Briggs Sr. became MVSU's eighth president in October 2017 and remains in the job today. Two years later he named Dr. Shinah Simon as director of university bands — the first female band director in MVSU history and in the SWAC, a glass-ceiling moment the school celebrated widely.
Archie Cooley died in April 2024 at 84, his family announcing it through the school. The innovative coach who spent 19 seasons at four HBCUs, went 83–78–5, and put the Satellite Express on the field was inducted into the SWAC Hall of Fame in 2007. MVSU's football identity is still the offense he built.
On June 24, 2024, MVSU unveiled a new athletic logo, broke ground on a new turf field at Rice–Totten Stadium, and cut the ribbon on a new Jumbotron — all on one historic day. The same day, athletic director Hakim McClellan officially stepped down after two years, and head basketball coach George Ivory took over as interim athletic director. A new weight room, baseball/softball pavilion upgrades, tennis courts, and basketball/volleyball media rooms were all on the end-of-2024 upgrades list.
The Mississippi Legislature honored MVSU's 75th anniversary in House Concurrent Resolution 37, recognizing 75 years of higher education in the state. The university launched its celebration at Green & White Day at the Capitol in February 2025. In January 2025 the school also introduced Terrell Buckley as its new head football coach at a press conference in Itta Bena.
On October 18, 2025, the Delta Devils beat Lincoln (CA) 49–0 at Rice–Totten Stadium on homecoming — their first win of the season, their first shutout since 2008, and their most points in eight years. Valley Madness, the October basketball kickoff, packed the gym earlier that month with both teams, the cheer squad, and the crowning of Miss DDG 2025-2026.
On January 20, 2025, the Mean Green Marching Machine performed at the 60th Presidential Inauguration — the only HBCU band in the parade. Frigid weather moved the whole event indoors to Capital One Arena, where the nearly 300-member band played "Before I Let Go" and drew a standing ovation. The trip cost $350,000; a GoFundMe topped $300,000. The invitation, accepted under band director Dr. Miguel Bonds, also drew national scrutiny and alumni debate — the school backed the students and the opportunity to play on that stage.
The Delta Devils were slated to meet Lincoln (PA) at Soldier Field in the Chicago Football Classic on September 12, 2026, with the Delta Classic against Delta State opening the home slate at Rice–Totten Stadium. Score and attendance not independently confirmed.
The in-state SWAC blood feud, and for decades it wasn't a rivalry at all — Jackson State owned the series (27–1–1 through 1982, with Valley's only win in 1954 and a tie in 1956). Archie Cooley's 1984 team finally broke through with a 49–32 win in Jackson, the signature victory of the Satellite Express era. The Tigers still dominate the series, and the game remains the one Valley circles every year.
The other in-state SWAC rivalry. Its most famous meeting was the 1984 "Game of the Century": fifth-ranked Mississippi Valley State, averaging 64.1 points and 666.6 yards a game, against Alcorn State — with Jerry Rice matched up against Alcorn's Issiac Holt, one of the best defensive backs in college football, a duel they'd later renew in the NFL. The Soul Bowl name belongs to Jackson State–Alcorn; Valley–Alcorn has no trophy, just bad blood. In the 1984 Game of the Century, Alcorn beat Valley 42–28 in front of what the Mississippi Legislature later called the largest crowd ever to attend a college football game in Mississippi history.
The non-conference Delta rivalry, branded the Delta Classic (powered by CB&S Bank in 2026). Played at Rice–Totten Stadium with a white-out theme, it's the in-state, cross-division game that packs the Valley's small stadium — the 2026 edition kicked off September 19.
The SWAC's old-guard classic pairing. On October 3, 1984, Jerry Rice scored two touchdowns against Grambling in the Circle City Classic in Indianapolis — Valley's last appearance in the Classic for 38 years. The 39th annual Classic finally brought the Delta Devils back to Lucas Oil Stadium for the 70-years-of-football celebration, this time against North Carolina Central, with the Mean Green facing the Sound Machine in the halftime battle of the bands.
The Port City Classic in Mobile, Alabama, has become a neutral-site SWAC showcase. In 2025 Alabama State edged Mississippi Valley State 21–17 — another chapter in a growing Gulf Coast rivalry game.
🥁 Mean Green Marching Machine · since 1961
The Mean Green Marching Machine — "the Mack of the SWAC" — has been MVSU's loudest ambassador since Russell Boone's 1961 rebirth: the first African-American band to participate in the Tournament of Roses parade, multiple presidential inaugural parades (most recently the 60th in 2025), the 2023 Circle City Classic battle of the bands, the 2023 National Battle of the Bands in Houston, and the 2024 HBCU Labor Day Classic Battle of the Bands. The Satin Dolls danceline performs with the band, and its stands performances — like blowing "Nobody Does It Better" on Jackson State at JSU's 2012 homecoming — are the stuff of band-head legend. Under Dr. Miguel Bonds the band runs close to 300 members.
Band director before the 1961 rebirth; the band handbook notes that records on him and his accomplishments are thin, though photos show an active marching and jazz band representing the university in that era.
The St. Louis native who rebirthed the band in 1961. Drawing on his youth drum-corps background and public-school teaching experience, he broke the band away from traditional military-style marching toward drum-corps showmanship — "atmospheric ornamentation" and modern drill designs — a total rethink of what a school band could present.
A Louisiana native who directed the band for just one year before departing for Virginia State, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and Norfolk State. In that single year he won the Braniff Airlines Battle of the Bands at Texas Stadium in the spring of 1973 — the band's first major national battle title.
The legendary 32-year run. A Shreveport, Louisiana, native and MVSU alumnus who had directed bands in Fayette, Alabama, and Tuscaloosa before coming home, Tramiel built the modern Mean Green identity — big brass, relentless percussion, showmanship — and mentored generations of directors, including his successor's successor. Retired in 2005.
A New Orleans native who came to Itta Bena after 21 years teaching in the New Orleans public schools. He carried the program through the post-Tramiel transition before stepping down in 2011.
Succeeded Torregano in 2011 and directed the band for two years.
Directed the band from 2013 to 2016; his departure was contentious enough that band-world forums were still arguing about it when the next hire was announced.
A longtime MVSU band staffer who was promoted to director of bands in May 2016, with Tomisha Brock joining as associate director. He retired in 2019, opening the door for a historic hire.
The first female band director in MVSU history and in the SWAC. An MVSU class of 1995 clarinetist who had played under Leonard Tramiel himself — "Mr. Tramiel did not play any games," she said — she earned a master's from Union University, a Master of Music Education from Tennessee State, and a Ph.D. in music education from Florida State, then returned home; the hire was announced in May 2019.
A New Orleans native who came over from Talladega College, where he had also taken a band to a presidential inauguration. Bonds has said he applies for the inaugural parade every cycle, whoever the president is — and his application landed the Mean Green at the 60th inauguration in January 2025, the only HBCU band on the national stage.
All nine Divine Nine organizations hold chapters at Mississippi Valley State. The Valley's most storied Greek line is Phi Beta Sigma's Delta Phi chapter — Jerry Rice was initiated there during his senior year, and Willie Totten is also a Sigma. Charter dates for the Valley chapters were not found in sources checked. The Mean Green Marching Machine's Kappa/TBS presence rounds out the yard.
Still digging this up — check back soon.
The 87,042-square-foot multipurpose arena opened in 1977 as the home of Delta Devil and Devilette basketball and volleyball, plus commencement and major events. It would go nearly 40 years before its first major renovation.
MVSU finished $17.5 million in renovations and expansion of the Harrison HPER Complex — exterior repairs, life-safety and accessibility upgrades, 2,700 seats for athletic events and 2,800 for programs like commencement. The project added fitness centers, an indoor walking track, and three technology-equipped HPER classrooms.
The school announced a new round of athletic upgrades to be finished by the end of 2024: a completed new weight room, a nearly complete jumbotron, new football turf, a roof overhang and ventilation bays for the baseball/softball pavilion, new basketball/volleyball media rooms, and resurfaced tennis courts — a visible bet on lifting Valley athletics back to winning.
The football stadium — opened in 1958 as Magnolia Stadium — was rechristened Rice–Totten Stadium in spring 1999 to honor Jerry Rice and Willie Totten. In 2005 the field itself was renamed Charles 'Chuck' Prophet Field for the former athletic director and sports information director. The 10,000-seat stadium got a new Jumbotron and a new turf field in 2024.
The campus administration building is named for Dr. William W. Sutton, the fourth president (1988–1998), and anchors the administrative core of the 450-acre campus.
The campus library honors Dr. James Herbert White, the founding president who built the school from Delta dirt. It sits on the academic core near the W.A. Butts Social Science building.
Home to the music program that feeds the Mean Green Marching Machine, the Fine Arts Complex carries the name of Walter Sillers, the longtime Mississippi political figure.
The Science and Technology building, alongside Fielding Wright Mathematics & Science (named for the governor who broke ground for the school in 1950), anchors the STEM side of campus — part of the school's push into environmental health, engineering technology, and computer science.
The Jacob Aron Student Center, the H.M. Ivy Cafeteria, and residence halls including Leflore Hall, Magnolia Hall, and the newer men's and women's dorms make up the student-life core, with the Lois Aron Chapel and H.G. Carpenter Auditorium serving as gathering spaces.
MVSU's on-campus public radio station, WVSD 91.7 FM, broadcasts MVSU programming, current events, and music across the Delta — the school's own voice on the dial.
Doug Porter — a College Football Hall of Fame member — is credited in prior research with coaching Valley football from 1961 to 1965 (years not re-verified in this pass). The football program has retired five numbers: 10 (Willie Totten), 18 (Parnell Dickinson), 56 (Terry Houzah), 66 (Vincent Brown), and 88 (Jerry Rice). The football team has never won a SWAC championship; its last playoff trip was 1984.
In office since October 2017. Named the SWAC's first female band director in 2019 and steered the school through the 2025 inauguration spotlight.
New Orleans native, in the job since 2023. Took the Mean Green to the 60th Presidential Inauguration in January 2025; says he applies for the inaugural parade every cycle.
Head coach 1980–1986 and architect of the Satellite Express. Died April 2024 at 84; SWAC Hall of Fame 2007.
Threw 58 touchdown passes in 1984, went 31–57 as Valley's head coach with the program's last winning seasons in 2005 and 2006, and is one of the rare coaches to lead a team in a stadium bearing his own name. Later coached at Albany State and Alabama A&M.
Introduced as the new head football coach at a January 2025 press conference.
MVSU class of 1988; served as interim athletic director in 2024.
Athletics director as of 2025, pictured with the basketball programs and Dr. Briggs at Valley Madness and homecoming events.
Life at the Valley is small-town Delta: a 450-acre campus a mile northeast of Itta Bena off U.S. Highway 82, with the nearest real town five miles out, Jackson 100 miles south, and Memphis 120 miles north. The school calls itself "The Valley," and with roughly 2,000 students it's one of the smallest publics in Mississippi — everybody knows everybody. Game days revolve around the Mean Green Marching Machine, and football Saturdays at Rice–Totten are the social calendar. Men's teams are the Delta Devils, women's teams the Devilettes.