HATTIESBURG — A red telephone booth sits outside Southern Miss’ international center without a soul in sight. Just east, an Oseola McCarty statue basks in the sun near a fountain still with no one to be found.
The hush of a college campus is met with birds chirping and occasional loose limbs falling from trees, likely a result of the week’s rain storms.
In reality, the setting was just the calm before another storm taking place just north at the university's athletics facilities, where the thump of bean bags hitting wooden boards is met with the clink and fizz of beers and seltzers opening.