Native Mississippian and Ole Miss Grad Returns to UM Business

“I am forever drawn to the textures, the echoes, the way things look and feel,” acclaimed author and Yazoo City native Willie Morris wrote after returning to Mississippi to teach at the University of Mississippi following a decorated journalism career in Texas and New York.

“The South is a blend of the relentless and the abiding for me.” 

Lou McPhail, a relatively new professor at the Ole Miss School of Business Administration, may well be mirroring Morris’s path in the circle of life. He also enjoyed an extraordinary career elsewhere before returning home to find his calling educating and imparting all life has taught him to a new generation of young people. 

“I attended high school just outside of Denver at Wheat Ridge High School in 1981,” McPhail said. “My family was from the Oxford and Calhoun City areas, and my father attended Ole Miss from 1957 to 1963. 

"I grew up going to Ole Miss sporting events my whole life, so it was in my blood.”

McPhail returned to Mississippi in 1981, enrolled in the university's Naval ROTC program and earned an engineering degree in 1986. He also earned the officer designation of naval aviator, which led him to fly an A-6E Intruder bomber on more than 30 missions in Operation Desert Storm during January and February 1991.

“Probably, the most intense mission was the first night of the war, Jan. 17, 1991, going into Baghdad,” he said. “I was with a group of 12 aircraft tasked to act as decoys for strike groups coming from a different direction. 

“Our mission was to launch tactical decoys and have the Iraqi air defenses shoot at our group, while the F-18 Hornets flying with us were tasked with shooting high anti-radiation missiles to take out their surface-to-air missiles. The first casualty of the war, Scott Speicher, was part of our group."

Iraqi forces were well-armed, with more than 1,300 anti-aircraft guns and hundreds of surface-to-air missiles around Baghdad, McPhail said.

"It was quite the ‘fireworks show’ to see them all firing at us while the bombers were attacking from the other direction.”

After his military service, McPhail decided to pursue a law degree. 

By this time, his parents had moved to Bismarck, North Dakota, where his father was hired as CEO of Basin Power Cooperative. His mother reminded him that he had not been home for Thanksgiving or Christmas in years, so he enrolled at the University of North Dakota Law School, just four hours away.

“I did focus mostly on business-related classes in law school,” he said. “I enjoyed learning about how business is conducted and the complexities of contract law. In my third year, I received my practicing certificate, which allowed me to try cases with the supervision of a licensed attorney.

“I loved being in the courtroom in front of a jury. I think, ultimately, it prepared me to be a more effective teacher later in life.”

While a student, and an early-practicing attorney, McPhail joined his father in the oil and gas business, buying and selling low-producing wells, rehabilitating them and keeping the royalty interests for their profit line. 

His primary work, though, was as a practicing attorney with a large firm, plus the occasional teaching gig on the side at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. He taught both business law and criminal law and began to migrate toward teaching full time. McPhail retired from teaching in 2018 and relocated to Tucson, Arizona, to take care of his parents.

“After my father passed away, I asked my mother where she wanted to live,” he said. “My whole family is from Oxford and she wanted to move back home.

“So, for both of us it was like coming ‘full circle’ back to Mississippi in 2023. There was an ad for a business law instructor. I found that I really had missed teaching, so I applied and, luckily, got the job.”

McPhail teaches four sections each semester of BUS 250: Business Law, a required class for many business majors. His gift for teaching was recognized soon after he returned to Ole Miss when he was named the 2025 Business Teacher of the Year. 

“There are teachers who inform, and then there are people like Lou McPhail who truly inspire, and I mean that for faculty and students alike,” said Rich Gentry, professor and chair of the management department. “He has lived about seven lifetimes as a fighter pilot, attorney, entrepreneur, and teacher, and somehow channels all of it into the classroom with an energy that is genuinely contagious. 

“Our students don't just learn business law from Lou; they learn what it looks like to live fully. We are lucky to have him home.” 

Besides his love of teaching, McPhail has two other passions: golf and flying his Cirrus SR-22T on most weekends. 

“Being Mr. Lou’s student has been a fantastic experience. He strives to teach beyond the books and draw on his experiences as an attorney and an entrepreneur,” said Yiping Wang, a junior from Dalain, China, majoring in accounting and minoring in manufacturing with the Center for Manufacturing Excellence. “The stories and cases he tells make even the most complicated legal concepts easy to understand. 

“Outside the classroom, he uses his diverse background to give great advice on navigating life and being a good person. He is not only an excellent business teacher, but an even a greater mentor.”