When Lance Pogue took over the South Panola High School football team, there was no magic formula to sustain the success that had been built in Batesville.
The success was built around the talented players that wore the Tiger jerseys.
South Panola (9-0, 5-0) hosts the Columbus High School Falcons (7-2, 5-0) at 7 p.m. Friday in Batesville in a Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 6A, Region 1 game.
Pogue has led the Tigers to five state championships in nine seasons.
“We’ve just been overly blessed and very fortunate to have a lot of great players through the years,” Pogue said. “That’s the biggest key. Coaching in my eyes is way, way overrated. There’s good coaches everywhere you go, but players make the difference. All through the years, we’ve just been blessed to have a lot of talented football players.”
Pogue was hired by South Panola in 2007 after coaching at Winona High School and Eupora High School, his alma mater.
Pogue is right — South Panola has been blessed with very talented players. The Tigers won their first Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A State championship in 1993 under the direction of Willis Wright. South Panola beat Warren Central 42-28 and that team was led by two future National Football League players.
Deshea Townsend and Dwyane Rudd were the catalyst for that first championship and both went on to play at the University of Alabama. Townsend won two Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also played one season for the Arizona Cardinals, and is currently the defensive backs coach at Mississippi State.
Rudd played for the Minnesota Vikings, Cleveland Browns, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“A lot of players have come along,” long-time South Panola radio announcer George Carlson said. “You’ve got daddies, uncles, and pretty soon grandaddies who were playing for South Panola.”
Former Ole Miss defensive tackle Peria Jerry and former Mississippi State defensive back Derek Pegues played for South Panola in the mid-2000s. Several of Pegues’ former Tiger teammates also competed in the Southeastern Conference: Demario Bobo (MSU), John Jerry (Ole Miss), Jamaica Sanford (Ole Miss), Chris Strong (Ole Miss), and Jeramie Griffin (Alabama).
Mississippi State and Ole Miss have four players on its current rosters who played for South Panola.
Since winning the 1993 state championship, the Tigers have gone on to win 10 more (seven in Class 5A and four in Class 6A). They have played in 15 state championship games and have been a runner-up four times.
The success and tradition is engrained in kids at an early age and they understand what’s at stake when they decide to play football.
“A tradition and an established tradition, just makes a lot of kids expect to win,” Pogue said. “The young kids, the elementary kids, the junior high kids, all they’ve really known is success. When it’s their turn, they want to be a part of it. There’s a drive there to continue to try to be good.”
Along with Wright’s one championship and Pogue’s five, Ed Stanley won one, and Ricky Woods won four. All four of Woods titles came in a four-year stretch from 2003-06. Woods, the current Starkville High School coach, didn’t want to comment on his former team.
Woods started the 89-game win streak that was snapped by Meridian in the 2008 state championship game.
The community has bought into the football team and they have a sense of pride when people talk about the “University of South Panola,” the nickname former Clarion Ledger writer and current Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum executive director Rick Cleveland gave the football program.
“It’s one of the common things that unite the community,” Pogue said. “On Friday night, they’re all behind their team. It’s a rallying cry for the community. They like to win.”
Although Pogue gives a lot of credit to the players on sustaining the success of South Panola, he and the four coaches deserve some of the credit.
For the last few years, South Panola gets everybody’s best shot. Everybody wants to beat the Tigers and prove they are a good team. So Pogue has had to play motivator with his young high school team.
Both Pogue and Carlson said this week’s game against the Falcons won’t be easy and both praised the job Randal Montgomery has done of turning the program around.
Columbus will give it everything they have, but South Panola is used to it.
“It doesn’t come easy,” Carlson said. “It’s not easy to get on top and it’s not easy to stay on top.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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