Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was the first pick in the 2020 National Football League draft. In 2019 Joe put together arguably the most successful single season ever by a college quarterback when he won the Heisman Trophy by the largest margin in history and led LSU to a perfect 15-0 record and national championship. But Joe may never approach what his grandmother did during the 1949-50 basketball season at Smithville High School in rural Northeast Mississippi. That honor may go to his grandmother Dorothy (Dot) Ford Burrow. Joe was in attendance with over 20 other family members last Monday in Boston when his almost 93-year-old grandmother was inducted into the National Federation High School Sports Hall of Fame.
If it had not been for the 2023 Amory tornado, very few would ever know the story of Dot Burrow. Rick Cleveland wrote an article that was not planned after the tornado. Cleveland went to Amory to cover the tornado for Mississippi Today and ran into Dot’s son Jimmy. The eldest son told Cleveland of his legendary mother’s high school basketball play in the 1950s. Cleveland then hit the newspaper internet to verify Jimmy’s information. Cleveland then told Mississippi about Dot in his weekly column. Mississippi High School Activities Association Executive Director Rickey Neaves took it from there and nominated Dot for the honor. “We have several former athletes and coaches that we consider each year, but after reading Cleveland’s article we knew she was the right choice for this year’s nomination,” stated Neaves.
High School
Dot at 5' 10," believe it or not, scored a nifty 82 points, establishing an all-time Mississippi record in leading her Smithville team to an 88-39 win over Caledonia back in February 1950. Her future husband James Burrow played basketball at Mississippi State and brought his Bulldog teammates to Dot’s 82-point game. The town of Smithville’s population was only 419, but when Dot played, the gym crowds exceeded 1,000.
In registering that scoring record, she broke her records of 68 and 72 points earlier that year. In 30 games that season, Dot scored 1,481 points in averaging an amazing 49.37 points per contest. That is scoring 1.76 points per minute, and she didn’t even play every minute of every game. In three regional tournament games she averaged 52 points per game her senior year.
Dot could out jump any player on the court and was the fastest. Her lowest point total her senior season was 17 points on a night when she played only one quarter because she was sick. Her next lowest total that season was 34 points in a game.
The athletic bloodline runs deep in the Burrow family. Dot’s husband James was the starting point guard for two years from 1950-52 at Mississippi State. Oldest son Jimmy (Joe’s dad) finished at Amory High School in 1970 and played quarterback on the Ole Miss freshman football team before transferring to Nebraska where he played safety. Jimmy played in the Canadian Football League for five years before returning to college coaching. He later was the defensive coordinator at Ohio University from 2005-18. Jimmy’s two sons, Dan and Jamie, played at Nebraska. Dot’s youngest son, John, played football at Ole Miss.
In 2020 Smithville High School gave a fitting tribute to Dot in naming the girls basketball locker room “The Dot Burrow Locker Room."
Odds & Ends
Southern Miss head football coach Will Hall probably did not know on his first day of kindergarten in Amory that his bus driver Dot Burrow was such a legend.
The Southeastern Conference will hold football media days next week at the Omni Hotel in Dallas.
The Biloxi Shuckers won five of six games from the Mississippi Braves in their final series. The Braves will be moving to Columbus, Georgia, next summer. This week, the Braves will host former Ole Miss Rebels Jacob Gonzales, Tim Elko and the Birmingham Barons.
