The "Bully Story"

One of my favorite Justice stories had to be the one he told about dealing with bullies. It went something like this:

"Growing up, I was very poor. We didn't have indoor plumbing until I was 14. When I was 11 though, they sent me up to the big county school in Fulton for the 5th grade after going to a one room school for the first 4 grades. Back in those days, lunch was a quarter at school. It was all my family could do to afford that $1.25 a week to buy my lunch. Also in my grade was a bully who was 14 years old. That son of a bitch stole my lunch money everyday and would kick my ass doing it. My teacher was worried and sent a note to my mom telling her about it. She wouldn't give me any extra money to pay for lunch and told me to stand up for myself. So, one day I came in early from recess and I got a chair and put a dictionary in it. As soon as that mother fucker walked in the door I hit that son of a bitch right in the damn nose. Now he whooped my ass......but he decided that hit in the face wasn't worth 25 cents."

I still laugh about that one.

Preseason Family Dinner- 1999

Our senior season, Justice arranged a covered dish dinner in the fieldhouse for all players and families to attend. This turned out to be a great idea and was alot of fun, and I got some great pictures from this event that I still have today. However, in the middle of this thing, Justice called all the parents upstairs to talk to them. In the car on the way home, my parents told me the speech went something like this:

"Moms, Dads, I just want you to know that we're gonna take good care of your boys. I really appreciate you all being here tonight, you know the one thing that I regret in life is that mother is no longer here. I would give anything to have her walk through that door right now. She always told me to watch my language, and she was embarassed to come to my games because of the way I talked. Parents, believe me, I know I cuss too much, and honestly I'm ashamed of my language, but where I come from, you can't get somebody's attention by singing Kumbaya."

Unbelievable.

Big Hit

I remember on a rain day once, we went Oklahoma in the turf room. Like most little receivers did, we would always try to match up with the other little guys on defense. After seeing my opportunity come with William Ogle, I jumped to the front of the line. However, after getting the handoff, Phillip Muzzi, not only missed the block, he missed Damien Wilson COMPLETELY. Damien hit me so hard all I saw was my feet go over my facemask and I had a pain in my neck for two days. I know this hit was ferocious, because two private school guys came to watch that day because they were "starters" at MRA and Canton Academy and wanted to come play with the big boys. In the middle of practice, not long after my hit, one of them looked at Buckles and said "I don't believe I want none of that", and left. Never saw his fat ass again. I also believe that was the same day that Sharegus drilled Ben Strain and the day that Keith got laid out too- that was a memorable practice.

"30 Hinge"

In preparation for Clinton in 1998, Justice had us down on the dry erase board in the turf room drawing a new draw play called "30 hinge". I knew the second he told us it was going to BoBo and not Artha we were in for it, because why would a play have 30 in it but go to the tailback? We aren't dealing with two rhodes scholars as our tailbacks, so I knew this would be fun. After drawing the damn play up and explaining it for what seemed like an hour. Justice attempted to write "30 hinge" on the board. He got "h". Then, after erasing both e and i, he goes "well shit, how the hell do you spell hinge?". Afraid to speak up and trying to keep from laughing, I wasn't ABOUT to open my mouth. Justice looked at the other coaches, and they seemed to be the same way. Finally, Justice goes "fuck it, let's just call it the Clinton Special". He has a master's degree, seriously.

Coach Justice Random Tradition #3- "Calling us out of class for no reason whatsoever".

How many times did we here Mr. Kent, Mr. Lucas, Mr. McGehee, or one of the assistants say over the intercom, "can I have all the football players report to the gym immediately please." Always excited by this, we were always greeted by Coach Justice. However, the reasoning behind these meetings sometimes were confusing. I remember once he called for all MALE athletes. He spent the entire 15 or so minutes were there talking about "being tough" and how the soccer team was playing well because they were "bowing up on folks", and how the basketball team lost to Warren Central because "they weren't very tough". So, with PE period under an hour away, he simply ended his "toughness" speech with, "oh shit, you guys better get back to class."

Another one of my favorites was the time I was in 9th grade and he called us out of class early in the day to talk about "the relationship between a coach and a player" all he talked about was how if we played hard for him, he'd be there for us no matter what. My favorite line was "if Derrick Garner comes to me and needs something, then by god that's the LAW!".

However, my favorite was when I was still in 8th grade. After beating Mendenhall for our first win of the season (the game where Artha threw up all over the field after an 80 yard TD run), Justice walks in, INTERRUPTS Coach Breland and says. "Fellas, don't it feel good to come to school today as winners? I mean Mendenhall is always one of the better football schools, and you went down there and beat their ass. Now Coach what play did you score that first one with?" After being told it was 30 base, Justice goes. "Well by god, Artha, I guess you was just too rough! See guys, you have to line up every play with the attitude that "this is the one". You have to think you're gonna score every play." Then he left. Add any more impromptu speeches we got from the man.

Pigott is Honored as Sophomore of the Week- October 24, 1997

Right before our game with Lanier, (which was the second game of the aformentioned two game bad stretch), Scott Perkins came to me and offered me the opportunity of a lifetime. Carrying his XXL pants and his pads and belt, he simply said "stuff me Pigott". Extremely excited that I was presented with such a wonderful opportunity, I took my time just in amazement of the sheer size of not only the pads, but of the pants- how could a human being be this large and still be smaller than Mako? After a flawless stuffing job, I returned the pants to Perk, who was very impressed. The reason the stuffing was so perfectly done is because in my early days of varsity football, my goal was simply to look good on the sideline because I knew I'd spend the whole game there. So Perkins, for just one night, was blessed with not only the talent of a starting tackle in 5A, but of the look of a superstar on the sideline- which is a great combination.

Anyway, after a completely forgettable half, which saw Lanier lead us 14-7, Justice was so angry he couldn't argue. I mean seriously, he had a look of shock on his face, because he had just said the previous week that "we ain't a very good football team". *Sidenote- the most ironic thing here is that Lanier also scheduled us for homecoming, which explained the HUGE crowd that night- I think the paper said 10,000 (second week in a row), and the halftime program at Newell Field that night took forever! We always played one game a year there and this had to be the worst!* We pulled out a 27-14 unimpressive win against the doormat of the division that night- but a fire was lit the very next week.......

The Monday we returned to practice in SHOOOOOOOOOOOORTS and SHOULDER PAAAAAAAADS, Perk presented me with a certificate of "Sophmore of the week". Yep, that's right folks, he misspelled sophomore. However, I DO still have the certificate because Perk himself put on the certificate to keep it for future job applications. I haven't needed it yet, but it's there just in case. *Another sidenote- Perkins spelled my name right, which is rare, but misspelled sophomore- wow.* However, I think that moment in which I received that certificate lit a fire in our ass like no other. Not only did we dismantle Greenville that week, in a game where Pigott saw his first ever on field action, we got hot despite losing to Clinton in the season finale and made a run all the way to our first ever North Half Championship Game berth, in which Perkins made his famous "can't you just smell the gold on your finger" speech.

I'm a big believer in fate, and I like to think that my stuffing of Perkins's pants made us a new team. Pigott becoming sophomore of the week, is not only the turning point of that season, but it's the turning point of the PROGRAM.

The Mighty Jaguars 9th Grade Team Goes 0-7

This was the most surreal school year of my life. Alot of weird shit went on that year just at the school. This is the year that we had 1- a bus driver strike, 2- a teacher fired and then suing and getting rehired over a skit written about a girl in class, 3- a gang riot which caused 17 expulsions, and 4- an 0-7 football team. People all over that school made fun of us and said shit like "man we're gonna suck here in a few years when those guys get up there playing." But, here's what people forget:

• JJ played the ENTIRE season with a hip pointer, basically taking away our option attack with Ne Ne.
• Buckles missed 3 games with a deep thigh bruise.
• Alot of the games we lost were flukes or on weird plays. Warren Central beat us 6-0 and 12-6 that season. Pearl beat us 23-22.
  
• We had the worst coach ever. Freddie Lee had no continuity whatsoever on that team. I was taking snaps with the first team defense all week in practice and then not playing. Then, I would take snaps on second team defense, and play offense. We had 5 starting secondaries that season.
• Alot of players quit- good for the long term in varsity, but it's hard to replace starters in midseason no matter what level you're playing on.
• We played 5 road games and 2 home games. We had a home game with Warren Central cancelled due to a tornado warning, and those mother fuckers made us go there TWICE.
  

Anyway, we still sucked. For some reason we had 400 coaches in practice and for our two home games, but only Bradberry and Lee wanted to go to road games- just sounds like a case of "coaching when it's convenient". The funny thing is we played all those same schools again in varsity and beat all of em. What the hell happened that year? However, let me leave you with some very hilarious memories from our crazy season with Freddie Lee.

• Will Davis- that's all I have to say.
• Calvin jumping offsides against Pearl when Cody called gap. Buckles threw his hat on the field. We had to punt and they scored the winning TD. I had the biggest hit of my life in this game on a kickoff- it was kinda an accident but I drilled the ball carrier.
• Never having matching helmets. I remember Chad and Logan played the whole season with black helmets.
• One of my favorite Justice moments ever. After Ne Ne had a long TD run called back on a holding call on Brad Welch, Artha broke one for about 70 yards. Again, it was called back for holding. When asked the #, the official said "number 39"- Artha's number. (I could be mistaken on that) Lee, Liles, McLain all went ballistic. At this time, Justice came busting out of the press box and ran onto the field and said "that mother fucking son of a bitch is never gonna ref a game on this field again!". Justice got into the act and lit that poor guy up for all he was worth, and coached the rest of the game on the sideline- remember the coaching when it's convenient thing? Plus I think he was mad it was Sammy Dantone on the opposite sideline.
  
• Like I said, the starters would never practice.
  
• Here were all of our coaches to some extent that season- Lee, McLain, Bradberry, McCune, Liles, Justice, Rosamond. I think that's all of em- we sucked, but we didn't need that many coaches. Maybe we were "over coached".
  
• Random guys like Jeff Case, Brad Welch, David Brown, and David Hogan who were actually seeing playing time quit out of nowhere and for no reason. THAT was weird.
• The damn 8th grade guys talked so much shit about how they could beat us. Well, we never found out because all the guys talking shit went to MRA because they couldn't cut it on the 5A level

Well, after a nail biting loss 36-12 to the Clinton Arrows, our 9th grade season finally came to an end. I remember Freddie Lee's post game speech. "I sincerely hope you guys can feel the feeling of what it's like to be winners very soon, because you deserve it. This was my first time to ever coach a 9th grade team, so thanks for making my first season an 0-7 one." He lost his first 2 the next year, and then Nowell took over.

Fact- we went 12 games in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade between wins. We lost 3 in a row and then tied our last game in 8th grade, lost all 7 in 9th, and then lost our varsity opener to Louisville.

Another fact- Freddie Lee said the first day of practice that he doesn't cuss and that "we could say anything he says"- that lasted real long.

New Post

Pigott,
We need you to put up a new post. I need something to help my day go by.

Perkins' Pre and Post Game Speeches

I always thought Perkins' pre and post game speeches were great. He really was the emotional, on and off field leader of that team. But two funny ones stand out ot me more than any others and they were both before South Panola games. Before the game where we played South Panola in front of a state record crowd of 18,000 and some odd people, Perkins was behind the paper before we broke it down, and said the most redundant obvious line I've ever heard in my life. "Ok guys, biggest game of the year." He added a few more lines after this, but honestly I tuned him out because I was laughing. Because I was like to myself "we still have 7 district games to play!". Anyway, Perk worked us into a frenzy, in which we responded by being outscored 22-3 in the first half by South Panola, but playing them even 6-6 in the second half losing 28-9. This game went on to stir up alot of controversy after Eddie Strong and Ed Stanley claimed a series of dirty hits from Andre McCune.

The other that I thought was funny was before our very last game with Perkins. In the locker room, Perkins and Ephrom delivered what I thought was a very encouraging and uplifting speech, but then Perkins got dramatic by saying "can't you just smell the gold on your finger already!". Now I thought we had a good chance to win, but I wasn't gonna get ahead of myself- we still would have had to have beaten Moss Point (which South Panola did not). I laughed............on the inside. I hated it for the seniors though in this game because after our 40-11 loss, their historic careers were over. The exciting combo and nucleus of seniors that year, that put Madison Central on the map way back in 1993 going 8-0 at Rosa Scott and then going 34-6 in 3 years at Madison Central helped paved the way for the guys like us to wear the gold. I would give anything to be able to have enough rings for those guys too, because I think they deserve it almost as much as we do. I think of guys like Perkins, Anthony Ephrom, Derrick Garner, Nathan Rives, Larry Hollins, Andre McCune, Jermaine McDonald, and even big Mako as pioneers that paved the way for one of the true great football programs in the state of Mississippi. Just had some funny speeches. Here's to you, guys.

I was just thinking about the hit I put on JJ in 9th grade. Coach Lee said go three quarter speed, and to me that means you still have contact. He was so pissed at me, he was grabbing my face mask screaming about me hitting JJ. Oh the memories of 9th grade football and Freddie Lee. Pigott we had some good times with Freddie.

"Pimps, Queers, and Assholes"

One day in preseason practice before my last varsity season, Justice was wondering where JJ was. When he saw JJ wasn't there, he said that attitudes like are "for the fuckin' birds!". Then, after rambling for a few minutes, he gave us the following speech which was supposed to change our life and inspire us to be better people.

"Fellas- I have a son at Mississippi State and a daughter at Ole Miss. I've looked through the degree catalogs at both schools. There's no course of study for a pimp, a queer, an asshole, a whore, or a slut. I mean seriously, some of you guys can't imagine yourself being 30 years old. You just think you're gonna run that gator mouth and dick around your whole life. I tell ya something else jack, if you don't meet your wife at church or at college, you're gonna meet your wife in a juke joint somewhere and just asking her to suck your dick!".

He didn't have to say it that way, but he's right.

The "CJ McLain Appearance"

One of my favorite moments ever took place when I was still in 9th grade. The first day of school, most of the varsity players were late getting to the fieldhouse for everyone's favorite PE period. This led Coach Perry Liles to go off on an unbelievable rant in which he highlighted with "if you don't like it, THERE'S THE DOOR!". He jumped when he pointed. About the time he was finishing up, Coach Justice walked in and picked back up where Coach Liles left off. However, he was with former Madison Central Linebacker CJ McLain, who was playing for Arkansas, and is shown here playing for the Arkansas Twisters of the Arena 2 League. After talking for a second about CJ, Justice talked about how "life don't come with a menu." Then he said one of his most famous lines ever:

"Guys, you may not look like CJ McLain. I mean look at me- I'm short, fat, bald headed, one ball bigger than the other'n."

Hilarious how that killed Liles' fiery mood in a great big hurry.

Coach Pogue Cried, Seriously- Meridian Game- September 1997

Ok this game stands out for a ton of reasons. Besides being one of the marquee matchups in 5A that week, I remember the following things about this game:

• The stadium was very old, but is a very historic stadium. Meridian has been playing there since the 1920's and were 1933 National Champions.
  
• We fumbled twice inside the 5.
  
• We ate dinner at Quincy's before the game along with cheerleaders. While we were leaving, Justice saw The Meridian Star in a newspaper machine outside Quincy's and bought it after he saw the headline.....more on that in a second.
• For some reason, the coaches were mad at DeLoach. He didn't play but 3 snaps at tight end in this game, but he still long snapped. Derrick Garner started on both sides of the ball and played the whole game. I remember he could barely stand up towards the end of the game. Then, they moved him to tackle the next year- go figure.
• Cedric Thompson also didn't start at fullback in this game. I thought this was weird because Cedric was our leading rusher against Louisville. Derrick Douglas, after starting at right defensive end against Louisville, got moved BACK to offense. He then, like I said, fumbled once and then cause a fumble on a missed block inside the 5.
• Delvin Fleming busted his ass on the track after he slipped because of the cleats we all wore.
• Scott Perkins tried to steal all the pizza after the game. Damn that's the most happy Justice ever got with the food ya know?
  
• We ran into a train on the bus on the way home (we had to ride yellow dogs) and abunch of cars pulled next to us talking shit from their car.
  
• Jermaine McDonald had 3 INTS, including the game icer. Jermaine had 0 career INTS going into the game, but then had 3. As soon as he picked off the 3rd one, Pogue grabbed Taylor AND Nowell by the neck and hugged them like a little kid. He then started clapping and tears flowing from his eyes. He kept pacing the sidelines just shedding tears after a great win in which we won 17-6. One of my all time favorite moments.
• This is one of the only times I ever remember wearing the all white on the road. I think we wore the next week again against Grenada, but I don't remember it ever being worn after that.
  

Ok, back to the newspaper article. The cover of The Meridian Star that day said "Wildcats should get in win column tonight." The article went on to talk about how Madison Central was overrated and how we always lost to battle tested teams in the playoffs after playing a cupcake non conference schedule. Justice got everyone ready to fight someone in that locker room when he goes:

"This is the Meridian Damn Star- I mean read this shit! This is what people think about us! Well let me tell you something, jack. By god we're gonna play some battle tested teams this year! The days of playing Pelahatchie, Puckett, and school for the deaf are over. Now let's go out and jump in their shit!".

For those of you who don't remember our non-conference schedule that year was Louisville, at Meridian, at Grenada, and South Panola.....stay tuned for columns about all of those games.

The Gentry Post Game Speech- October 1997

Everytime I drive to Greenville to my grandparents' house and pass through Indianola and see Gentry High School, I think about this game. It stands out for the following reasons:

• We were coming off a season where we had just lost to Starkville in the state 5A quarterfinals, and had made state headlines by having the toughest non-conference schedule in the entire state of Mississippi, and at the time, we were ranked #7 in Clarion-Ledger Super 10 poll. So, WHY did Gentry schedule us for homecoming that night? This made for a very hostile crowd and I remember walking to the field from the locker room I was hearing all kinds of threats.
• Along with this, the school is in right in the middle of the worst part of town- really didn't feel safe.
• The field was hard as a rock, had grass way too long, and it was absolutely freezing.
• Anthony Bennett had quit the week before and this was Chris Purvis's first start for us that year.
• Johnny Pate left the team for two weeks and Justin Shannon quickly became the alternate receiver behind Jerome Geralds who started this game along with Larry Hollins.
• Justice had received alot of heat from parents and boosters for not playing enough of the second teamers in blowouts, and I remember him getting booed towards the end of this game by several parents after we had the game locked up.
• Keith, Ben Strain, and I spotted "Val Venis" who was the Line Judge on our side who may have been hung more than any human being I've ever seen.
  
• Those of us on the scrub bus in this game got to have an adventure with Coaches Lacey, Sligh, and Nutter because we got lost.....twice.
• Dan Tarsi was then upset when he spotted 4 deer in the distance and we didn't stop so we could kill them.
  

Ok, after all that, we played the first bad game in a two game bad game stretch that year. Anthony Ephrom threw 3 picks, including back to back picks in a very strange 3 straight plays with interceptions sequence in which Derrick Garner picked off the middle pass between the two Ephrom interceptions. We pulled away at the very end when Nathan Rives intercepted a pass to ice the game, and we pulled out a 42-20 victory in a game that was alot closer than the final score. That, along with several questionable calls, an inexperienced tailback, and two key players quitting the team, may have prompted Justice to have what was to me his most memorable post game speech of all time. As you know, usually these speeches were just things for the press and parents to see as kind of a "movie moment" for people outside our team to see. They also were NEVER filled with any cussing......until tonight.

Justice, who was openly frustrated let loose the following speech:

"We ain't a very good football team...........................................long pause.....................We AIN'T a very good football team........................................another long pause......................WE AIN'T A VERY GOOD FOOTBALL TEAM!!!!! We play like we played tonight and we call ourselves a "playoff team"? We thought we could come up here tonight and just goof around and beat this team and we almost let them beat us! What, you think you can just show up and whip people in 5A? Let me tell ya something, jack, if you think that's the case, you are sadly mistaken! Monday afternoon as soon as we get there in the fieldhouse, you're either in the film room or in the weight room. No more joking around! At 1:45 you BE your ass in one of those rooms! Everybody up, let's pray."

He never ceased to amaze me.

Worst Hit Ever

I had several big hits come to mind when I was thinking about this, but this had to be worst I had ever seen. It was senior year, the first O and the scout D were practicing on the game field getting ready for the playoffs. It was a usual practice, Coach Justice decided that we should work on a couple of screen passes. He called a screen to BoBo. JJ dropped back and tossed the pass out to BoBo and Buck started up field. Andrew Temple was chasing BoBo from angle, when Buck turned up field and saw him coming. Buck blind sided Temple and launched him like 3-5 yards down field. Buck hit him so hard that I thought he had killed Temple. The worst part about it Buck laid on the field and people thought he had hurt himself on the play. The whole time he was laughing his ass off about what had just happened. Anyways this was one of my favorite plays from practice. If you have any other favorite hits or plays from practice or games share them.

The "Shit House" Story

In the practices leading up to my first varsity game ever in 1997, we were in preparation for very tough 4A Louisville. Not only was this the school where Coach Justice won back to back state 4A championships in 1986 and 1987, its also the ONLY school that my group of seniors never beat. After putting Louisville on the non-conference schedule along with Grenada, Meridian, and South Panola, our early season practices had to be filled with more seriousness than usual because we weren't Pelahatchie, Puckett, and school for the deaf. On a Wednesday full pads practice the first week of school, Mako Shelton had one of his "Mako moments" where he took a play off because it was going in the opposite direction. Expecting a Justice tirade, which we'd already had 5 of that day, I took a step back. However, what insued was a piece of high school football comedic lore. Justice, instead of hollering at Mako, turned to Scott Perkins and said the following, and I quote:

"Perkins, hell's bells, why the hell does no one give a shit about taking pride in their work? Guys, can we please take pride in what we're doing? I mean seriously, if I was gonna build a shit house, I'd make the best one I could possibly make. I'd paint it just the right color. I'd make the door open and shut just right. I'd put flowers all around it. Then, I'd make the hole so big, anyone's ass could fit on it. Run it again, m'line."

The funniest thing is that NOBODY laughed......until we got inside.

The Infamous Jackie Sherril "farting incident"

One of the ones that only I took part in and also one of my favorite was the infamous Jackie Sherrill "farting incident". This day, which was near the end of the season in 1998. I wanna say we were preparing for Clinton (the game where Ben Shannon made his famous catch over Dontae' Walker). However, Coach Sherrill, who was about to clinch the SEC West that year for Mississippi State was at practice to watch Buckles. During a water break, Coach Sherrill came on the practice field to talk to Coach Justice. I was on a knee about 10 feet behind them. About 30 seconds into the conversation, Coach Justice farted so hard and so loud the shorts FLUFFED OFF HIS ASS! Of course, at this point, I am laughing hysterically. Coach Justice and Coach Sherrill then turn around and look at me awkwardly. Coach Justice then uttered his famous line, "What's the matter, Pigott, folks don't fart where you come from?". Truly a classic memory.

Have Fun

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