JACKSON, Miss. — Tucked away in Jackson State’s locker room at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium is a picture of Pro Football Hall of Famer Walter Payton. Before every home game, running back Irv Mulligan prays to the Tigers legend before jogging down the tunnel to a massive sphere of smoke. Think Ray Lewis-level energy entering M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
“I like to come out to the smoke with passion like [Lewis] did with the Ravens,” Mulligan told Andscape.
Mulligan’s pregame energy extends to the football field. He recorded his fourth consecutive game of 130 rushing yards or more in Jackson State’s 51-14 win Nov. 9 against rival Mississippi Valley State, is the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s leading rusher (112.0 yards per game). He’s also one of the biggest reasons the Tigers control their own destiny for a chance to compete in the SWAC championship game on Dec. 7.
Jackson State Athletics
Jackson State (8-2, 6-0 SWAC), the No. 1 scoring offense in the conference, will face the No. 1 scoring and total defense in the conference, Alabama State (5-4, 4-2 SWAC), on Saturday, hoping to clinch its third outright SWAC East crown in four seasons and its first under coach T.C. Taylor. But as JSU fans laud Mulligan’s performance on the field, the passion behind his runs is fueled by a deeper purpose.
His inspiration lives inside of him, one that is tougher than any hit he has taken on the gridiron. The Beaufort, South Carolina, native is on a mission, running for himself and family members — especially the women — who have been killed due to gun violence by men in his hometown.
“We’re [men] putting our women in positions to lose because of our selfish acts,” Mulligan told Andscape. “They don’t deserve that.”
On Sept. 2, the Hilton Head Island Packet and the Beaufort Gazette reported that Beaufort County, part of the Hilton Head Island area, experienced a new peak in homicides in 2023 and that this year’s numbers could surpass it. The article reported that the increase includes “drive-by shootings and younger victims,” according to Beaufort County police.
“There’s a lot of hate [in Beaufort],” Jackson State freshman defensive back KJ Chisholm, a Beaufort native and one of Mulligan’s paternal cousins, said. “You have to find a way to get out of there.”
On Sept. 15, the night after Mulligan’s 2024 season debut in the Tigers’ 33-15 victory against Southern, his cousin, Ari’Anna Mulligan, was one of three teens who were shot in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Burton, South Carolina. She died en route to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
The 17-year-old senior was eager to attend her senior prom, become a hairstylist and attend Georgia Southern, according to The Island News.
On the day Ari’Anna Mulligan was shot, her mother had sent her to a local convenience store to pick up a few items. She was with her brother, her brother’s girlfriend and her boyfriend. Her brother and boyfriend, close friends who were often linked with each other in the streets of Beaufort, had prior disagreements with other guys in the area. When Ari’Anna Mulligan’s brother and her boyfriend were spotted in the parking lot of the apartment complex, several gunshots were fired.
As Mulligan describes it, she was accidentally shot in the head during a “crossfire.” Her brother, who also was shot, might never walk again.
“She [Ari’Anna] had nothing to do with it,” Mulligan said.
Mulligan witnessed a slaying for the first time nearly 30 yards from his house when he was 6. Buck, one of his older cousins, was trying to protect his mother from his abusive stepfather. After the two got into an argument, Mulligan saw Buck’s stepfather fire multiple shots at his cousin, killing him.
At one point in his life, Mulligan believed his family was addicted to gun violence.
“I felt like we [family] were cursed coming out of the womb,” he said. “I grew up fighting. I had to fight every day. I had a picture [in my mind] on how the world was, and I knew I had to survive.”
Jackson State Athletics
By the time Mulligan was in high school, he had seen several family members and friends die from gun violence. The death of Ari’Anna gave him another layer of motivation, Mulligan said. On Sept. 29, the day after her funeral, Mulligan declared he was dedicating his 2024 season to his cousin.
But her death was only part of Mulligan’s purpose on the field. Nearly three years before, one of his older sisters, Shaina Syamone Mulligan, was one of two women killed following a dispute at a party on Dec. 4, 2021, in Seabrook, South Carolina.
Mulligan, who has six siblings including four sisters, remembers Shaina as the “favorite aunt that everybody goes to for everything.”
“All my nieces and nephews loved her,” Mulligan said of Shaina, a mother of an 11-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son. She would have turned 33 on Sept. 8. “She was definitely the backbone for my other sisters and siblings.”
Mulligan didn’t take the death of his sister well. In May 2022, following his junior season at Wofford, Mulligan was arrested by the Beaufort Police Department on a charge of domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature, resulting in the university suspending him from playing his senior season.
Although Mulligan deeply missed playing with his teammates, he said, he needed the break.
“Until this day, they don’t have an explanation for my charge,” Mulligan said. “But when my sister died, I ended up letting the demons get a hold of me. As bad as I wanted to play, sitting down gave me time to grieve. … If I would have played, things would have gone well on the field, but outside of football, it probably wouldn’t have been that way. [The break] allowed me to refocus.”
At one point, Mulligan didn’t know when his 2024 campaign would begin, besides carrying the weight of his family on his shoulders. Mulligan, a father of two, has a 3-year-old daughter, Brielle Syamone Mulligan, who shares the same middle name as his deceased sister. His son, 5-year-old Keon Jeremiah Mulligan, carries his middle name, which was given to him by his mom in connection to the Bible verse Jeremiah 29:11.
After his 2023 season was cut short by three games due to an ankle injury, he was hoping to be back for Jackson State’s season opener against Louisiana Monroe. However, it wasn’t until his third MRI that he learned the ligaments in his foot were torn, requiring emergency surgery July 3. Not long after the surgery, Mulligan spent several weeks in JSU’s fall camp riding the stationary bike on the sideline at I Believe practice field to prepare for his season debut.
After missing Jackson State’s first two games, Mulligan suited up against Southern, rushing for 51 yards on 13 carries as part of a snap count ordered by Taylor. Following that game, Mulligan rushed for a combined 207 yards on 35 carries against Grambling, Texas Southern and Alabama A&M.
Now, the deaths of Ari’Anna and Shaina fuel him like never before, he said.
“Every time I’m on the field, I think about their killers,” Mulligan said. “I think like, ‘Oh, before I take this play off, what would they do?’ They don’t have the option to take a play off. That goes through my head daily. I don’t want to disappoint them.”
In a running back room that features rushers who can make a game-changing play, Mulligan is the bona fide leader of the group. After only eight games, he is 104 rushing yards shy of the first 1,000-yard season of his college career. If he eclipses the milestone, Mulligan will become JSU’s first running back to register 1,000 or more yards in a single season since Sy’veon Wilkerson did it in 2022.
“His [Mulligan’s] work ethic and how he goes about his work is different,” Jackson State freshman running back Travis Terrell Jr. said. “He really does run the ball like it’s his last chance at living. Football is his life.”
Taylor agrees. “I tell him all the time, you got some real gifts God blessed you with,” he said. “As long as he does things the right way and stays healthy, he’s going to be special.”
Mulligan is one of the last players to emerge from the tunnel. He runs to the end zone, where he prays to God, talks to his deceased loved ones and looks down at the hot-pink wristband on his right wrist imprinted with the name “Shaina Syamone Mulligan” to remind him of one of his purposes in life. And before play starts, he takes the wristband off and gives it to his cousin, Jackson State director of recruiting Brandon Morton, to make sure it remains in good hands.
“When my sister died, I had to wake up,” Mulligan said after a moment of silence. “I had to change. … I could be dead or in jail. I dedicated my life to my sister. I dedicated this season to my cousin [Ari’Anna]. They fuel me.
“Everything that’s happened has been a lesson learned. I’m going to make them and my community back home proud.”
Leave a Reply