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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