’77 Wildcats: Comeback for the ages

Northwest Mississippi halfback Bernard McIntosh rambles around right end with Pearl River’s Jeff January in pursuit. (Wildcat Yearbook photo)

Seriously, no one saw this coming.

On Sept. 3, 1977, the Pearl River College Wildcats and the Northwest Mississippi Rangers met in the season-opener for both squads. And those in attendance at Dobie Holden Stadium in Poplarville will likely never forget what they saw.

This was the third meeting in the last 12 games for PRC and Northwest. In 1976, Northwest scored a 24-20 victory over the Wildcats in the opener at Senatobia. And in the season-finale, Pearl River got revenge with a 17-7 win over the host Rangers in the MACJC state championship game.

As the football gods would have it, these two squads opened the ’77 campaign against each other once again.

Timeout: Pearl River College Stadium

The Pearl River College Wildcats are pictured above during a practice held at the old PRC Stadium. (Wildcat Yearbook photo)

Every now and then, this blog will take a step out of the 1970s.

Today’s entry will focus on a facility … the old Pearl River College Stadium located just south of Dobie Holden Stadium. I’m not sure it had an official name.

I’m sure very few of my Pearl River Junior College teammates from the 1977 and 1978 seasons ever saw a game in the old stadium. They knew about the facility’s existence only because the playing field doubled as our practice field.

The large and rough concrete bleachers still stood along the west sideline of the playing – or in this case –  practice field during those two years in the late ’70s. A two-story, wooden press box had been removed from atop the concrete structure many years earlier. It wasn’t really two stories, but it did have a small, shed-like structure on its roof which housed the person who filmed game footage for the coaches. And the weight room we utilized – in what was the southwest corner of the old stadium – was housed in the original concession stand building. Other than that, those were the only two reminders of the old stadium that we saw every day at practice.