Throw me a cookie.

Sebastien DeChaunac, former Ole Miss tennis player from France, raced for the ball but lost the point, then looked into the stands and yelled to the lady always there and always dressed in red, white, and blue.

“Throw me a cookie!” he said, his accent audible through the crowd. 

 That was always one of her favorite stories to tell.

Her cookies were unique and special. And unforgettable, even in the heat of a college tennis match on a warm Mississippi spring day.

 Eleanor Shaw died today. Many knew her as the cookie lady. She always brought a bin of them to Ole Miss tennis matches for coaches and players and fans. And for anybody who would take one. Most of the time I took several.

 One day I reached in and got a couple of them, then soon went back for more.

“You’re going to have to put those away,” I told her.

“Looks like you’re doing a pretty good job of that yourself,” she quipped and laughed.

 She had turned 90 just this week. She played competitive tennis into her mid-70s. She rarely missed an Ole Miss tennis match and loved to attend women’s basketball games. She played both sports at Ole Miss and also softball and badminton. They were considered intramural sports back in the late 1930s when she played. Officially sanctioned women’s sports at the college level had not yet come along.

Born in North Carolina in 1918, she won the Mississippi state high school tennis singles title in 1935 for McComb. She graduated from Ole Miss in 1939 and attended graduate school at North Carolina.

She went to matches and games for all Ole Miss sports through the years, but tennis was her first love. She was well-known throughout the state and the South for her game on the court and later as a member of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. We all knew her for her loyalty to Ole Miss and its student-athletes and coaches.

And her cookies.

“Eleanor was a legend in her own right by her accomplishments on the tennis court, but she will best be remembered as one of the all-time great supporters in the history of Ole Miss sports,” Ole Miss men’s tennis head coach Billy Chadwick said. “At the heart of the success of our tennis program has been Eleanor’s presence at every match and, of course, her famous homemade cookies. We will miss her greatly.”

After a match this season, I gave her a ride home. She lived in an ante-bellum house high on a hill, halfway between Bramlett Blvd. and The Square on Jackson Ave. in the heart of Oxford.

She gave me a tour of the place, pushing her walker slowly and pointing out this and that, an hour or so spent back in time to another era, as I looked over the grounds and moved from room to room. She seemed to enjoy showing me her home and her accomplishments, much like she enjoyed those of the Ole Miss players through the years and being a part of them.

I am sure many around the world who knew her paused today when they heard the news of her death. Hers was indeed a life that was memorable.

-Written by Jeff Roberson

omspirit.com

 

Julie Chadwick, Billy Chadwick, and Eleanor Shaw with her bin of cookies