Steve McNair Murder Update #5: The Mt. Olive Effect

Gary Estwick of The Tennessean details the effect of Steve McNair’s murder on his tiny hometown of Mt. Olive, Mississippi.

It seems everyone in Mt. Olive (1,050 residents) has a McNair story. And none of them are negative. The article illustrates how, despite the fragmentation of the family unit in the U.S., despite the de-emphasis on the wisdom gained by elders and what they have to pass onto all of us, it still takes a village to raise a successful human. And the tighter the village, the better the chance of producing a man as humane as McNair:

On Mt. Olive:

 

“We’re real small,” said pharmacist Bill Powell, whose family has owned Powell Drug Store on Main Street for 50 years. “We’re barely a dot on the map.”

On McNair and his effect on the town of his birth:

“Mount Olive, Mississippi, lost a legend,” said Ray Duckworth, 41, a family friend. “I will never forget growing up with Steve, the things that we did; the time I had with him.”

[McNair] was a frequent visitor here, hosting a youth football camp just a week before his slaying. Each season, he’d buy new shoes for the school football team and host an event at the local Boys’ and Girls’ Club.

When he could, he’d pop in to see his eldest son, 17-year-old Steve Jr., play football games.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast in August 2005, tearing the roofs from Mount Olive homes and leaving the town without water or power for weeks, McNair sent more than two dozen tractor-trailers full of supplies….

 

“He was just a very humble, very sweet man,” said Jaylyn Miller, 40, who runs the Jane Blain Brewer Memorial Library, just off Main Street. “Everyone is just like in shock … He just always did so much.”

His appearances would attract droves of kids seeking autographs. No one here could remember seeing him refuse one.

“All these kids around here, they wanted to be like Steve,” said Madison McGee, McNair’s head basketball coach and assistant football coach in high school. “He was a fine boy. It’s so bad that this happened, but it’s the Lord’s will.”

And the final word on McNair by family friend, Duckworth:

 

“If you were in need, he was going to help you,” Duckworth continued. “If he said he was going to get back to you, he’d get back to you.

“When he was poor, he was my friend. When he was rich, he was also my friend.”

 

 

Too bad Mt. Olive cannot be transposed onto every neighborhood  in urban America. Perhaps Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi would both be alive today.