Many know Joe Burrow as the talented Cincinnati Bengals quarterback or the young man who stated a few years ago that he was “just a kid from Athens” while winning a Heisman Trophy at LSU.
No doubt about it, Joe Burrow is an exceptional athlete. However, in Amory, Mississippi, he is affectionately called “Joey” by his grandparents and other locals who have watched him grow up.
Burrow’s father, Jimmy Burrow, is an Amory native. After walking on at Ole Miss, he was also an all-star safety on a Nebraska national championship team. It must be somewhere in the DNA. Burrow’s uncle, Johnny Burrow, was a starting safety at Ole Miss. His beloved grandfather, James, was the starting point guard for Mississippi State’s basketball team in the 1950s.
Dororty Burrow, also known as “Dot,” once scored a state record with 82 points in a high school basketball game for Smithville. Smithville is a small town about six miles up the road from Amory. Both towns have experienced devastating tornados in recent years but have not let their Mississippi spirit falter and have built back with resilience.
James Burrow has spent much of his life involved with Mississippi athletics and has been part of the state’s sports history. Burrow, an educator, was an administrator for Amory Schools. During his career, Burrow hired the legendary Bobby Hall as the head football coach for the Amory Panthers.
When James interviewed Bobby, he warned him that they might not win a game, to which Bobby responded, “If you hire me, I guarantee you we’ll win more than we lose.” Amory won seven games that first year and went on to take three state championships under Hall. Bobby Hall and his team won 309 games at Amory.
It gets better! Some might know that Bobby Hall is the father of Will Hall, the head football coach at Southern Miss. On Will’s first day of kindergarten in the small railroad town of Amory, Joe Burrow’s grandmother, Dot, drove the school bus and delivered the future coach to his dad’s football practice on the Amory High School football field.
James and Dot Burrow have always been proud of their grandson and spent many years traveling to Athens, Ohio, to watch him play a variety of sports as a kid. Joe Burrow has accomplished much in his athletic career, being the first pick of the 2020 NFL Draft and currently ranked as a top-10 quarterback in the league. He also started the Joe Burrow Foundation, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to help children facing food insecurity and mental health issues in Ohio and Louisiana to which his grandfather, James Burrow, shared, “We’re proud of Joey for a lot of reasons, especially that.”
The Burrow family passed down more than just athletic ability; hospitality, kindness, and care for others have also been inherited. In Amory, the Burrows are recognized for more than just football or athletics. They are loved for who they are as people and how they’ve contributed to the Monroe County community, which, after several decades, is like family. Carrying on his family’s traditions, Joe Burrow has been often known to say, “Everyone has the responsibility to do good.”
