Mardye McDole, a football star at Murphy High School and at Mississippi State, has died after a lengthy illness, multiple sources confirmed to AL.com. He was 63.

McDole was an All-State wide receiver at Murphy in 1976, when the Panthers reached the state championship game. He caught six passes for 245 yards — including touchdowns of 88, 70 and 32 yards — in that game, a 52-26 loss to a Mountain Brook team led by former Alabama star Major Ogilvie.

McDole went on to play from 1977-80 at Mississippi State, where he was a three-time All-SEC wide receiver. As a sophomore in 1978, he was the first 1,000-yard receiver in Bulldogs history.

Don Nelson played with McDole at Mississippi State, and the two remained close friends for the rest of McDole’s life. They first met when Nelson was a walk-on defensive back with the Bulldogs and McDole was the team’s star wide receiver.

“If I could describe Mardye McDole as a football player to the average person, here’s what I would say — if you were playing football on a playground, he looked like an eighth-grader playing against third-graders,” said Nelson, a highly successful football coach at several schools in Mississippi and Alabama for many years before retiring to the Florida Panhandle. “… If we threw the football out of the wishbone back then, everybody knew who it was going to.”

McDole was named an All-American as a senior in 1980, when Mississippi State finished 9-3 and beat top-ranked Alabama 6-3 in Jackson in November of that year. He finished his career as the school’s all-time leader in receiving yards (2,214) and receptions (116).

Nelson said he and McDole spoke often, and were most recently in contact last week. He said that though McDole was perhaps the biggest star in Mississippi State history, you wouldn’t know it by talking to him.

“He was just a great person,” Nelson said. “He was probably the most-famous player ever at Mississippi State, a legend, but he was down-to-earth. Here I was, a walk-on who earned a scholarship, and we had a great relationship. He never tried to ‘big-time’ anybody.

“I was always around him, because he was on the starting offense and I was on the scout-team defense. So we were on the same field at practice three years in a row. Thank goodness I didn’t have to cover him more than I did.”

After his college career, McDole was a second-round pick of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings in 1981. He played three seasons with the Vikings and later spent time with the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders and the USFL’s Memphis Showboats.

McDole also spent many years in coaching in his hometown, with stops at schools such as Murphy and Shaw. McDole was the wide receivers coach for most of Ronn Lee’s 10-year tenure as Murphy head coach.

“Mardye was not only a good football coach, but he was also a really good friend,” Lee said Tuesday afternoon. “He cared so much about the players. I was talking to (former Murphy and NFL star) Captain (Munnerlyn). We were talking about how Mardye always lived in the moment. He didn’t dwell in the past about his accomplishments, and he certainly had plenty of them. He was there to help the kids be successful.”

Current Davidson coach Rick Cauley spent 18 years at Murphy, the first 15 as an assistant before following Lee as head coach. He was offensive coordinator for much of Lee’s tenure when McDole coached wide receivers.

“We were loaded back then, especially at wide receiver,” Cauley said. “Mardye was the guy who kept us levelheaded. Ronn and I had a tendency to go a little wacko sometimes, but he was the calming voice. He was a been-there, done-that type guy.”

Cauley complimented McDole’s always engaging personality.

“He would fit into any room and instantly be anyone’s favorite,” he said. “He was just super cool, a guy you would want to talk to. He would come with the funniest crack at just the right time. He was a class act guy and one of the best dressers you will ever see.

“He was definitely the best of us.”

McDole was inducted into the Mississippi State Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame in 2015. He was named an SEC Legend by the league office in 2018.

John Bond, McDole’s quarterback at Mississippi State, tweeted about McDole’s death on Tuesday: