By John Cofield

In my years of research into Oxford’s pictorial history, I have come across dividing lines in the town’s past, after which things were not quite the same. 

Bruiser Kinard drew one of those lines. 

He was the first Ole Miss Rebel inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

The country’s football world looked toward Oxford and Ole Miss when Bruiser hit Hemingway’s field. Granddad, J.R. Cofield, took these three photographs of his old friend and our family has maintained a warm relationship with Mr. Kinard’s family all these decades. 

It is not a stretch to say Bruiser Kinard is our legend among legends. A Rebel’s Rebel.