Pair of Chickasaw County schools celebrate state baseball title anniversaries
Jun. 17—This year, a pair of Chickasaw County schools will celebrate big anniversaries for championship baseball teams.
Decades later, members of each team have made big impacts in and around their communities, thanks in large part, to what they learned from their experiences playing together.
Championship run starts lifetime of success for tight-knit group of 'hill boys'
It's been 50 years since the Houlka Wildcats won a state title in 1973. That year, David Huffman was a sophomore and Pat Houston was a senior.
In the years since, Houston, now retired, became a supervisor on construction projects, at one point holding the title of Project Site Manager at Tombigbee. Huffman joined the Marines after graduating, spent 30 years there and, after several years working in government, is now the mayor of Houlka.
Houston remembers the Wildcats, a small-town team from the north, taking on big cities from the south.
"All their suits matched. All our suits didn't match," he said. "We were just hill boys, but we had a good time and, even to this day, we're all a tight, fairly tight group."
Many of the teammates still keep in touch and know a lot about each other's families. Even Houston and Huffman did their interviews together.
That tight-knit nature started long before Houlka played a varsity game.
"We started playing together at recess in grade school and we just stuck together all the way to '73 when we won the championship," Huffman said. "Not a whole lot of our teammates changed positions over the years."
That chemistry and camaraderie was fostered by a Pony League set up by head coach Jimmy Guy McDonald and assistant coach Ross Young. It helped Houlka's group play nearby teams during the summer.
The establishment of the league was part of McDonald's desire to see his players succeed.
"He was very interested in making sure that we understood the position that we were playing," Huffman said. "If you didn't want to play, that was your choice, but he encouraged us to get out there and play and do the best that we could."
In the eyes of Houston, the team's camaraderie showed itself often on the field.
"Everybody backed up everybody and it was just any ball that was hit, if it was a ground ball to second base, an outfielder in place he needed to be when that ball was hit, even though it wasn't coming to the outfield," he said. "He still had a place he needed to be in case something went not according to plan."
In the years since that championship in both the military and the working world, Huffman feels that the dedication he learned from that season helped him later on in life.
"That was one of the things that Coach McDonald really instilled in us is 'If you're going to do something, do it 100%'," he said. "Just making that commitment to what your goal is and what you set out to do and you'll succeed. You may not succeed in everything. Every little piece. Every little step, but in the long run, the long term plan, you will be successful."
As for Houston, the importance of working together stuck out.
"If your construction crew wasn't pulling together, you weren't going to accomplish much and it helps you put a workforce together just like Coach McDonald put a team together of people that were not outstanding players and you could take that in life and take a bunch of dedicated people and still make a success in business," he said. "It would give you a good start when you play with this team and that team in '73."
Jim Hood was an 11-year-old batboy on that Houlka team. His main responsibilities included working on a field that he also played a bit on himself.
"There was a family right across from that field that had three boys and we played baseball about everyday out there," he said. "That was our playground and our high school baseball field and little league and everything else was played there."
Things took a turn for Hood in April of that year. His house burned down and he wasn't able to spend as much time with the team as a result. It did, however, make the state championship that much more meaningful.
"I didn't have any clothes and I lived with a family outside of town about eight miles out there, so I wasn't in town doing as much on the baseball game as I would've liked to have been," he said. "But I remember kind of salt on a wound as a kid not knowing where we were going to live because our house was totally burned down. It was a big, brick structure, but it was gutted.
"I think it helped. That victory."
Hood has since gone on to have an extensive political career. He served as the Third Judicial District Attorney of North Mississippi, then spent four terms as the attorney general of Mississippi. He even came close to becoming Mississippi's governor in 2019.
For Hood, living in a town of, at the time, a few hundred people, helped him to treat different kinds of people with the same respect something that paid off in his political career.
"I've since appreciated the humor in some people with different points of view and, in politics, that upbringing humbled me," he said. "Winning that championship made us all feel like we were, not above anybody, but at least, just because we had lived in a little town, it didn't mean that we weren't important, that kind of thing."
The team will have a get together at Seafood Junction on Friday, July 7 to celebrate the anniversary.
Chieftains claim championship at 'Yankee Stadium'
Okolona's time in the 1968 state playoffs got off to a rough start.
The Chieftains were beaten in their first game of a three game series against Ruleville at home. Okolona hit the road for Game 2 in Ruleville, where confidence in the town was high. So high, in fact, that people in the neighborhood were ready to celebrate in style.
Those plans would be mired.
"They had homemade ice cream already made up right behind the house across the street from the baseball field ready to celebrate going on to the next round and we beat them," former player Larry Gann said. "The little lady said 'Well, we can't have that ice cream going to waste, so you boys help yourself. Y'all won fair and square'."
This set up a decisive Game 3, where coach Jack Spradling decided to get creative.
Instead of playing it in Okolona, Spradling arranged for the contest to be played at Dudy Noble Field on the campus of Mississippi State in Starkville. At the time, the stadium had only been open for about a year.
The Chieftains won that Game 3, then swept Northeast Lauderdale in the final at Dudy Noble.
"That was like playing at Yankee Stadium for us," Gann said. "Winning the state championship was obviously fantastic, but doing it on a SEC field just made it that much more special."
In the eyes of Oscar Miskelley, there was a sign early in the season that Okolona was capable of big things. Early in the season, the Chieftains beat Tupelo on the road.
"For us, a little bitty city to go up and beat Tupelo," he said. "I mean, there were people honking in town and celebrating by the time we got back from that, so that was the start of the year."
Gann started at second base and occasionally pitched for Okolona that season. Miskelley was a student manager on the team.
After graduating, Gann went on to hold several head coaching gigs in football and baseball as well as administrative positions ranging from being a teacher to a principal to an athletic director. Miskelley, meanwhile, is the chief executive officer of Miskelley Furniture.
Okolona's biggest strength in 1968 came from keeping opposing runs off the board.
"We had some really good pitchers," Gann said. "I was just sort of a fill-in guy in between the main pitchers which were (Wayne) King and Donny Bryant, but we had good pitching and solid defense."
Though he ended up being an integral piece of Okolona's run, Bryant originally didn't want to be a pitcher, but rather, a shortstop.
"I was about 12-years-old when a couple of guys taught me how to pitch," he said. "I pitched one game and then the rest is history. I remained a pitcher from then on."
Bryant even got the final out for the Chieftains in the championship-clinching game against Northeast Lauderdale. After sealing the win, Bryant threw his glove into the air in celebration.
He hasn't seen it since.
"I threw it straight up and I never looked for it. The adrenaline was flowing so hard," he said. "I asked one of the managers and he said 'I don't know. We don't have it.' so it was gone."
Miskelley has fond memories of that year's team. They showed not only the chemistry their team had, but also what kind of person their coach, Jack Spradling, was.
"We had a special group. They stayed together and it was just, really, a lot of fun," he said. "We didn't go to the games in buses. We rode in cars. I'd always ride with the coach and he'd always have a case of new baseballs to be rubbed down and that's kind of a distinct memory that sticks out to me and he was such a positive person.
"He was a very young coach at the time, but he brought a lot of energy and really just belief to the players that they could do it."
Gann feels playing on that championship team taught him, and others, how to prepare to win, a skill that translates into any job industry.
"I always contributed playing sports as a big part of why I was able to do some of the jobs I had relatively successfully," he said. "I always had really good people around me."
As for Miskelley, whose furniture store has been recognized among the best in the country, it was the belief that you could accomplish anything you set your mind to.
"If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you can't," he said. "Just the belief that you can do something no matter what if the odds are stacked against you.
"We're very blessed to be a Top 100 furniture retailer in the country and nobody thought a small store that started in 1978 in Mississippi could get to that level, but because of the belief we saw early on that "Hey, you can do anything that you put your mind to.'
"It really instilled a belief that anything's possible if you work hard enough and that's some of the memories and some of the lessons I took from that to where we are in business today some 45 years later."
Bryant spent 30 years working in dry cleaners, factories and delivery service. Now retired, he felt that the championship run taught him how to treat people well.
"I learned to treat people the way you wanted to be treated," he said. "I had great teammates and good people.
"It gave you an understanding of life. You win something like that and it just, you have to pinch yourself and ask yourself 'Did we really do this?'. I learned a lot of life lessons in that year."
