Ruben Mendoza held dual roles on head coach David Cutcliffe’s staff at Ole Miss: strength coach and head of security. Mendoza was always on high alert during the week of the Egg Bowl, the annual rivalry clash between the Rebels and Mississippi State. During a 2003 practice of Egg Bowl week, Mendoza found himself running up the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium steps to confront a man coaches identified as a spy.
A distant figure dressed in maroon peered over the stadium’s top wall down onto Ole Miss’s practice field. Mendoza arrived at the top row, confronted the figure and then began to wrestle with him.