How Paul Sullivan’s uniform database became a go-to resource for Bulldogs fans

Paul Sullivan’s passion project grew out of pandemic boredom, but over the last four-plus years, he has built his Mississippi State uniform database into a detailed and comprehensive website with a strong social media presence to boot.

A software engineering major at MSU and a lifelong Bulldogs fan, Sullivan was searching for ways to combine his interests as graduation approached. Back in his south Mississippi hometown of Taylorsville in the summer of 2020, he went to work designing a complete history of Bulldogs uniforms, now including every team sport MSU offers.

“Say we’re playing Arkansas in basketball, and we’re wearing black. How many times have we done this before?” Sullivan said. “It was a whole manual process going through and figuring it out. Now I just go to the database website, and it takes two seconds. Just filter for Arkansas and black, and there’s the history. It’s something I was passionate about and had the time to do, and it worked out really well. I still use it, still keep it up to date.”

Sullivan’s father graduated from MSU with an electrical engineering degree in 1993, and the family would make the drive to Starkville a few times a year for football, baseball and basketball games. During his college years, Sullivan was never officially involved with the athletic department, but attended as many games as he could.

He interned in the fall of 2019 at Adtran, a telecommunications company in Huntsville, Alabama, and since 2021 he has worked full-time at Camgian — a software company based in Starkville that builds artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. The uniform database was mostly a personal project for Sullivan, but it also proved useful to talk about in job interviews.

“I talked about it a lot,” Sullivan said. “It had both technical aspects and hard work and determination and all that, pushing through to have a completed project. I’m really proud of it.”

What’s inside

Sullivan maintains the account @HailStateUnis on X (formerly Twitter), which has more than 7,500 followers. He regularly posts images with nearly every MSU team’s record in each uniform set, as well as the Bulldogs’ uniform history in every sport against each specific opponent.

The account links to the website hailstateunisdatabase.com, which has pages for MSU football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball. Sullivan also keeps track of football uniform history at Southern Miss, several community colleges across the state, and both his high school alma mater (Taylorsville) and its biggest rival (Raleigh).

Sullivan also operates hailstateunis.com, which has pages for Bulldogs softball, soccer and volleyball in addition to MSU’s revenue-generating sports. Every football game since 1980 is included, and the database dates back to 2009 for men’s basketball, 2011 for baseball and 2012 for women’s basketball. Sullivan’s data from postseason games goes back much earlier.

“For the really historic stuff, the digitized Mississippi State yearbooks are an incredible resource,” Sullivan said. “You usually can’t get every single game that way, but as far as what uniforms existed, what uniforms did the basketball team wear in 1967? You can find that out in the yearbooks to at least have a record of what those looked like.”

Newspapers.com was also a resource for Sullivan, who found images of old uniforms in past issues of The Commercial Dispatch, Clarion Ledger and more.

Sullivan’s website has every uniform MSU softball has worn since 2012, while the soccer and volleyball databases go back to 2020 and 2021, respectively. He has also drawn up every field design at Davis Wade Stadium since 2009 and every court design at Humphrey Coliseum since the 2016-17 season.

“When I first started doing it, it was only football, and then I added baseball second, then men’s basketball and women’s basketball and went from there,” Sullivan said. “It’s really cool to see the appreciation of the soccer and volleyball (teams), and softball as well. The coaches and players share it a lot more. You can tell it’s more meaningful to them.”

In the mainstream

Camgian, Sullivan’s full-time employer, sponsors the MSU student section for basketball games at The Hump, and with his software engineering background, Sullivan was asked to design rally towels for this season.

He designed a white towel for the Kentucky game on Jan. 11 with former public address announcer Hank Flick’s catchphrase “Welcome to The Hump for Hoops” in maroon lettering. For the Ole Miss game a week later, the towels read “This is our State.”

“What’s impressed me the most about him is the Hail State Unis account and database, and what he does in his personal time to keep that up and running,” said Jimmy Stringer, director of government affairs at Camgian. “When it came time for us to put together a package of towels, who else would you go to besides the guy who already has pretty good experience doing it in his personal time?”

Prior to the 2021 baseball season, Sullivan worked with head coach Chris Lemonis to help design three uniforms for that year — a new cream-colored jersey with the script “State” across the front and updated versions of both the white and gray pinstriped uniforms with the “M over S” logo out front. The Bulldogs went on to win their first-ever national championship that June.

Lemonis said he considers himself a traditionalist when it comes to uniforms but was impressed with Sullivan’s work. Sullivan put together a proposed uniform schedule for the 2025 baseball season, which would include returning the Western-style number font to both the white and maroon 1985-style jerseys.

“I tell every recruit we’re like the Yankees. You watch on TV and you see the ‘M over S,’ you see the ‘85s, you see the pinstripes, and it doesn’t change,” Lemonis said. “I want to be as traditional as we can, but little pieces, when you put a little something on the sleeve, (Sullivan) can really show you that. And he does a great job. He would mock some stuff up for me and help me get through that process.”

What’s next

Sullivan first created the uniform database when he was still in school, so now that he has learned more Photoshop and graphic design skills as a professional software engineer, he plans on updating the website this year. His plans include incorporating the softball, soccer and volleyball graphics into the database website and make the overall interface cleaner and easier to navigate.

What started as the result of a software engineer having too much time on his hands has turned into a much-utilized resource for Bulldogs fans and media members. Sullivan is still posting the updated uniform schedule and results for every MSU team after every game.

“I’ve been professional now for four years in this field, so I feel like I know a lot better practices and better ways to do things,” Sullivan said. “I’ve really enjoyed making it and I’ve enjoyed using it, and it’s cool to see that other people are able to use it as well.”

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