WATCH: “Thank You It’s A Great Honor”- Eli Manning Gets Emotional After Hearing About Ole Miss Jersey Retirement

Eli Manning had a name to live up to when he chose to pursue football. Safe to say the quarterback did it in style, as he lightened up the NFL for 16 seasons as well as football fields across the country in the 4 years preceding that at Ole Miss. Whilst with the Rebels, Manning passed for 10,119 yards, he threw 81 touchdown passes and had a passer rating of 137.7 and impressed NFL teams to be selected first overall at the 2004 NFL draft by the New York Giants. 

Eli Manning thanks Ole Miss for Jersey retirement

The 2x Super Bowl winner called time on his NFL career earlier this year. After such an illustrious journey, his alma mater decided to honor his accomplishments and retire the number 10 Rebels jersey. 

The college athletic director Keith Carter shared the news with Manning in a unique way. They filmed the journey to the Manning house where Eli and his family stood on the portico as the news was broken to him. 

The 39-year-old was clearly at loss for words, and extremely grateful as he said, “Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s a great honor I obviously loved my time at Ole Miss. My four and a half years…and still enjoying it. 16 years later and did my family here so we got… we got a good session here. Thank you so much. It’ll be a great honor and I’m excited about that.”

The quarterback retweeted the video saying, “This is a huge honor. Thanks so much to the entire Ole Miss community.”

Manning becomes only the 3rd Rebel to have his jersey retired. He follows in the footsteps of his father Archie (1968-1970) who donned the no.18 jersey and No. 38 Roy Lee ‘Chucky’ Mullins who suffered a career-ending injury in 1989 that left him a quadriplegic.

The Ole Miss Rebels Jersey No. 10 will be retired at their 2nd home game for the season against Auburn. Give the coronavirus pandemic, it seems unlikely that there will be a crowd present to witness a college hero get his long due honors. However, the sentiment and emotion will remain in what one expects to be an emotional event on 19 September for the Manning family. 

What do you make of the Ole Miss Rebels’ decision to retire Eli Manning’s jersey?

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