COLONELS FOOTBALL: A Decade of Dominance

Colonels Football spanned twelve seasons.  While the yearbooks for the 1958 and 1959 seasons show the schedule, they provide neither scores nor wins/loses. For the ten seasons from 1960 through 1969, the Colonels played 103 games.   Only once during that Decade of Dominance did we win less than eight games.  

Year	Wins	Losses	Ties
1960	8	3	0
1961	8	2	0
1962	10	0	0
1963	8	2	1
1964	9	1	0
1965	9	2	0
1966	10	0	0
1967	5	3	2
1968	8	1	1
1969	11	0	0
Totals	86	14	4

The Colonels were DVC Champs in five of the ten seasons; we lost in the championship game twice.  The team played in five bowl games, winning four. In our one loss, it was by two points.  By any standard, the Colonel years were very successful.  For a small town like Rolling Fork the success was like a dream.  Over the years, I have had many conversations with people from around the country about the schools we attended and where we grew up.  When I tell my stories, the response is often that the person wished he/she grew up in a community like ours.  I do believe that Colonels Football made my growing up years special to me and to many in our community.

In the DVC we had several regular opponents.  Our toughest foe had to be Leland.  We played them eleven times in the ten-year period for which I found won-loss records. (I’d be interested to know if players from the 1958 and 1959 football seasons would have the information/stats for those first two missing seasons.)  We played Leland twice in 1960.  We won the regular season game and they won in the DVC Championship game that year by a score of 7 - 6.  In the eleven games, we won seven games and Leland won four times.  We played Greenville twice and lost both times.  We did not lose to another team more than once.  We played Leflore County every year and they were consistently a tough foe.  We lost once and tied them twice.  And, two of our wins against Leflore County were by the score of 7 - 0, and another was a one point victory.  We also played St. Aloysius every year and lost once and tied once.  We never lost against Drew, Belzoni, Indianola, or Grenada.  We did tie Grenada once.  We were 9 - 1 against Cleveland.  The Colonels were a truly dominating force in the DVC.  The 1960s were a Decade of Dominance for the Colonels.

How did such a small school become a football power?  We did not have superior athletes.  We had very few players who played football in college.  College scouts were not at our games drooling over the prospects.  We were good and dominant because of the system.  In the first couple of installments I wrote about the dedication to excellence that was instilled in us by Coach Cain.  I explained how he was our secret weapon, and he didn't even coach the high school team after 1960, I believe.  He focused on the junior high boys and made them ready to be Colonels.  I also wrote about the weight program and football camp.  Those were new and innovative things back in the early 1960s.  If I recall correctly, it was Coach Dunaway who had the weight room built and started taking the team to football camp.  From the yearbooks, it looks like Coach Dunaway came to Rolling Fork in 1959. 

I remember a little, but not much, about the beginnings of the weight program.   My brother, Bobby, was on the junior high team when the weight room was built.  I recall that many people in the community thought it was expecting too much from players to come to the school during the summer to lift weights after working all day.  Coach Dunaway promised that if they would do this, he could turn the team into champions.  In 1960 we were in a conference championship game.  In 1961, we were in a bowl game.  We were DVC Champions in 1962.  The system was working and the entire community bought into it.  Coach Dunaway left and Coach Peets took over.  The success continued.  Coach Peets left and Coach Robertson became Head Coach and finished out the Decade of Dominance of the Colonels.

The changing of head coaches didn't affect the success.  We continued to dominate the competition.  The system stayed the same -- Coach Cain turning little boys into football players, lifting weights in the summer and football camp to start practice before school started.  Our success was also due to keeping our system simple.  We ran the same offense and defense, with very small modifications, year after year.  We ran both with no mistakes.  This was a winning formula.  I'm not sure when the first year of football camp occurred, but I think it was before the 1960 season.  Was it necessary to leave home for a week to practice football?  Other teams didn't do it, but then other teams didn't have a Decade of Dominance.  By the end of the Colonel Era, the entire community knew that lifting weights and attending football camp helped turn the Colonels into winners and threw their support into the program.  The first trip to football camp for a junior high boy was a scary thought.  What would they do to us?  It was one of those rites of passage -- after that first time, we had grown up a lot.  And year after year we went.  And we were winners -- every one of us, because we were Colonels.

There was no great secret for our success.   We became successful because of the dedication and the closeness we had as Colonels.  One of my teammates, when looking at an early draft of one of the first installments, suggested that while I might not want to get too "mushy" that I should express how much we cared for each other and loved one another as brothers.  Each and every one of us knew we could rely on one another.  We made solemn promises to each other that we kept.  Simply put, we were successful because we were Colonels, and we were the only Colonels.  

I wish to thank those who have taken the time to read this series about Colonels Football.  In the process of writing I began to remember more and more.  What started as a single story grew into a larger project.  I had help from others that I wish to thank.  Data from the early yearbooks were provided by Martha Carter Abney and MaryAnne Weissinger Smith.  Grace Anna Moore Hatcher, Phil Griffin, Jim McNeely, and Bob Wixon helped to fill in some details when I needed help.  And, I want to especially thank MaryAnne for setting up the Colonel's Commentary blog to post the stories and for sending out notifications of each post through FaceBook and by email.   I am solely responsible for any errors in the stories. 

By: Kenneth Burns