Panther pride swells as Houston County fans travel to Atlanta, bask in Perry’s crown

The city that long before Interstate 75 pushed through billed itself as the Crossroads of Georgia staked its claim Tuesday night to a high school football state championship, and it seemed like half the town journeyed 100 miles up the freeway to Atlanta to watch it.

A Houston County crowd that may have eclipsed 4,000 turned Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the cavernous, red-and-black-seated home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, into a maroon-and-gold Panther Pit as their team beat the Stockbridge High School Tigers, 38-27.

Perry High, whose gridiron history began in 1954, had never graced a state title game, much less won one, until Tuesday.

Seated a few rows from the turf on Tuesday, fan Sharon Dean, a retired middle school teacher and a 1978 Perry grad, spoke of how it was “breathtaking to see these guys playing their best.”

At halftime with Perry clinging to a 17-14 lead, another Panther partisan, Mary Ross Bankson, who graduated from the school seven years ago, said, “It’s cool to see the whole town turn out. There’s a big sense of community.”

Beside Bankson, a classmate of hers, Amber Howell, stated it clearly: “We’re making history.”

Fan Randolph Green, Perry class of 1976, said, “This means everything if we can take this championship back home.”

With the Panther crowd roaring in the aftermath of victory, it was almost as if the Class-4A trophy was already ensconced on campus at 1307 North Ave.

And as poetry might have it, the county’s former superintendent of schools, Robin Hines, who is now director of the Georgia High School Association, was the one who presented the championship hardware.

Hines, too, seemed amazed by the turnout.

“I think everybody in Perry, Georgia, is here tonight,” he boomed on the arena’s public address system.

Earlier in the day, former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, raised in Perry, recalled his alma mater’s football beginnings.

Nunn, a standout athlete, captained a state championship basketball team. He was also, less notably, a defensive end on the school’s 1955 football team in the program’s second year of existence.

Nunn, 85, joked that his lone season of football action came somewhat reluctantly after subtle arm twisting from then-coach Herbert LeGrande St. John, a former University of Georgia All-American.

Speaking by phone from the Georgia coast, Nunn said he planned to watch the Panthers’ title game on television, calling it “a big day for Perry.”

While Perry is Houston County’s oldest high school by more than a decade, it had never experienced the football glories of its prep-sports cousins to the north at Warner Robins and Northside high schools.

“If you look at Perry, this is their day on the big stage,” Nunn said. “For those of us who played at any time during Perry High School’s football history, I think it’s a great thrill.”

Perry alum Thomas “Boot” Hunt, who quarterbacked the Panthers in the late 1950s, led the team to a 15-4-1 record over two seasons. But those squads fell short of deep playoff runs.

Hunt, 82, dubbed by the local press in his playing days as “the Perry Flash,” went on to play at the University of Georgia under coach Wally Butts.

“I’d go to the game,” Hunt kidded, “but I don’t think anyone my age would be there.”