Bob Tyler a man of many talents. Here are a few

Bob Tyler’s textbook administrative skills have resulted in a North Mississippi fish hatchery being renamed in his honor.

While that’s certainly a significant and well-deserved tribute, Tyler’s legacy is as a Mississippi football coach, one of the most successful and celebrated to work in this state at several levels of play.

This is a man who should have been the head football coach at Ole Miss. Many believe if he’d gotten that job when it became open in 1970, the Rebels would have continued unabated their sterling success achieved previously under legendary coach Johnny Vaught.

Tyler did become the successful head football coach at Mississippi State. He led the Bulldogs for six seasons, compiling a 39-25-1 record with a pair of nine-win seasons. In the 9-3 season of 1974, the Bulldogs beat Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss before a Sun Bowl victory over North Carolina.

The NCAA caused MSU to forfeit some of those wins in a 1975 ruling that a Bulldog athlete received clothing at a discount unavailable to other students, a farcical matter compared to today’s pay-for-play climate in college sports.

That incident failed to diminish Tyler’s stature as a good person or as a coach and he went on to roam the sidelines at a few other stops, including Millsaps College for two seasons.

Tyler could always coach, as he proved in high school at Okolona, Senatobia, Meridian and Corinth. All he did at Meridian was win 38 games, losing none. There, he also became one of the first Mississippi high school coaches to field an integrated team.

He became an assistant coach at Ole Miss, his alma mater, under Vaught in 1968. When Vaught retired after the 1970 season, it seemed Tyler would succeed him, but a surprising twist of fate cost him the job. That story is embedded in college football lore in this state.

Vaught purportedly wanted Tyler to be the next Rebel coach, but other forces of nature were strong enough to shelve Tyler and instead install Rebel assistant coach Billy Kinard as Ole Miss’ new head coach for the 1971 season.

A longtime Ole Miss Athletic Committee member told me that most members of the panel also wanted Tyler as the coach, not Kinard. However, the Kinard family’s influence was underestimated and Billy Kinard was squeezed in as Vaught’s successor.

Kinard went 10-2 as Rebs coach in 1971, but was 5-5 in 1972 and after opening the 1973 season at 1-2, he was fired. Vaught came back as interim coach to salvage a 6-5 record for the Rebel squad. Tyler moved on to coach under Paul (Bear) Bryant at Alabama before joining Mississippi State as head coach.

Tyler’s second career in public administration further cemented his desire to help Mississippi when he became director of the state parks system in 1992. He received a major push toward that post from then-Gov. Kirk Fordice, according to the North Mississippi Herald at Water Valley, Tyler’s hometown newspaper.

Later, Tyler was appointed deputy director of the State Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks and was instrumental in advancing several major projects for the agency, including creation of the fish hatchery at Enid Lake in Yalobusha County. Tyler also moonlighted as his home county’s economic development director.

State Rep. Tommy Reynolds of Charleston, who led the effort to name the fish hatchery for Tyler, said, “Coach Tyler could bridge things and make them happen, People who might not ordinarily share an interest or goal, he could bring them together.”

A little-known fact about Bob Tyler is that he is also a gifted writer. That fact shouldn’t surprise anyone.

— Mac Gordon is a native of McComb. He is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Bob Tyler a man of many talents MS Here are a few