C-USA tourney heads back to Southern Miss after MS lawmakers retire state flag
After the Mississippi State Legislature’s vote to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag on Sunday, the Conference USA baseball tournament is back on for Southern Miss in 2022.
C-USA’s Board of Directors announced on June 22 that it would ban its championship events from taking place in Mississippi until the state flag is changed, meaning the 2022 conference baseball tournament that had been awarded to Hattiesburg on June 1 had been called off.
On Monday, C-USA acknowledged that the 2022 tournament is now back on track for Hattiesburg.
“With the state of Mississippi taking positive action to remove that Confederate emblem from the flag, the prohibition would no longer apply,” C-USA assistant commissioner Russ Anderson said in a statement to the Sun Herald.
The decision to take down the controversial flag also ended moves by the NCAA and SEC to prevent championship events from taking place in the state.
Mississippi has played host to eight of the last nine C-USA baseball tournaments and it has been played in the state a total of 11 times.
The tournament, which was played at Biloxi’s MGM Park from 2017-19, will move to Louisiana Tech for the 2021 season. After it is played at USM’s Pete Taylor Park for a sixth time in 2022, the 2023 event will take place at Rice’s Reckling Park.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is expected to soon sign a bill that overwhelmingly passed through the State Legislature over the weekend.
A nine-person commission will be appointed to develop a new flag design by September and Mississippi voters will have a chance to approve or reject that flag on the ballot on Nov. 3.
If voters reject the flag, a new design will be presented by the commission during the 2021 legislative session.
This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 1:45 PM.
