Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.—An updated biography of legendary Mississippi State University sports announcer Jack Cristil now is available.
Recently released by Jackson-based University Press of Mississippi, the 253-page, limited-edition paperback contains new material covering Cristil’s 2014 death and memorial service, along with additional post-retirement and memorial photographs.
According to author Sid Salter, the UPM edition “seeks to finish the story” of the Southeastern Conference icon who was the Voice of Bulldog athletics for nearly six decades.
A Memphis, Tennessee, native and longtime Tupelo resident, Cristil died at age 88 of complications from kidney disease and cancer. His life story told by Salter, a veteran Mississippi journalist, originally was released in 2011 by Pediment Publishing of Vancouver, Washington.
The hardcover version sold more than 10,000 copies and raised more than $170,000 for the Jacob S. “Jack” Cristil Scholarship in Journalism within MSU’s communication department. Salter said a portion of the proceeds from the $25-per-copy UPM edition “also will add to the scholarship fund.”
At his 2011 retirement, Cristil’s 58-year association with MSU made him the second-longest tenured college radio play-by-play announcer in the nation. He had called 636 football games—or approximately 60 percent of all football games played in school history. As men’s basketball play-by-play voice, he was in his 54th season—or nearly 55 percent of all those MSU games.
In all, Cristil shared with Bulldog fans across the Magnolia State and around the world more than 1,500 collegiate contests.
Salter is an MSU alumnus who now leads the 137-year-old land-grant institution’s public affairs office. A Philadelphia native, he has been a statewide syndicated political columnist for more than 30 years.
As with the original publication, Salter’s softcover version features a foreword by international best-selling novelist John Grisham, a fellow MSU alumnus.
In addition to bookstores across Mississippi, the new edition may be purchased from the publisher at www.upress.state.ms.us/about/ordering.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.