We are in the middle of football season with a lot of interest not just in high school and college games but also in the NFL. While Mississippi has never had an NFL team, there have been pro football teams from minor or indoor leagues.

If you look for information on those teams you learn of the Biloxi Fire Dogs and the Tupelo Fire Ants or Mud Cats, but there is no mention of Mississippi’s first professional team, the Columbus Warriors.

I have fond memories of their games as I attended them with my father when they played at the Magnolia Bowl in 1964. At the first game I was amazed that the Warriors’ quarterback was listed as having played for the Chicago Bears. I pointed that out to my father who simply smiled and said, “well at one time.”

The games ended in mid-season with the team leaving. I never knew why until about seven years ago when I had a conversation with the late Uncle Bunky and Ed Atkins. They told me a fascinating and entertaining story of the Columbus Warriors. A little research filled in the gaps of the history of what appears to have been Mississippi’s first professional football team.

In May 1964 the Tuscaloosa Warriors of the Southern Professional Football League announced that because of lagging attendance at their games in Tuscaloosa, they would be moving to Columbus. Officials in Columbus had offered the use of the Magnolia Bowl football stadium and had projected attendance of over 5,000 people for each game. Columbus’ S.D. Lee High School was drawing huge crowds to its games and, according to Tuscaloosa news reports, its head football coach, Billy Brewer, was to help in signing players for the Warriors.

According to The Chattanooga Daily Times, the principal owner, Eddie Brightwell, was a sporting goods salesman from Tuscaloosa. The Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville, reported that former Ole Miss star Paige Cothern would be a player coach and Brewer would be general manager. Commercial Dispatch Sports Editor Eddie Dean agreed to serve as business manager. The Warriors’ player-head coach was quarterback Bobby Jackson.

Jackson had been the quarterback on Bear Bryant’s first Alabama team. He had a short but storybook professional career, first with Green Bay, then on the Philadelphia Eagles’ NFL championship team and ending with the Chicago Bears. The Yazoo (City) Herald wrote “Yazooans and Mississippians can take advantage of the closeness of Columbus and enjoy professional football this year.”

The Tuscaloosa Warriors became the Columbus Warriors of the Southern Professional Football League on July 1, 1964, joining teams in Jacksonville, Florida, Orlando, Florida, Daytona, Florida, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Mobile, Gadsden, and Huntsville, Alabama. The schedule was a home and an away game between each team. The first home game for Columbus was against Gadsden on July 25, followed by a road game in Orlando. The team’s roster was a mix of local former college players, former NFL players and even some college players from area college teams playing under fictitious names. According to Bunky, this included some later famous college players who showed up on game-day evening and were paid in cash after the game.

Ed Atkins of Columbus played guard for the Warriors and remembered the ”long year he played for the team one summer.” The team had started practice in mid-July at Red Bird Park in Columbus. Ed recalled, “Doggone it was hot when we played.” The roster for home games was 29 to 35 players and they received $75 to $100 for games, which were played on Thursday nights.
A newspaper article refers to a traveling squad of 25, and Ed had said they drove to the out-of-town games in their own cars. The uniforms were gold with white and black trim.

There were several area players for the Warriors that Ed remembered: John Thompson, a guard from New Hope, “would make sounds like a grizzly bear while blocking”; Jessie Sparkman, a tackle from Macon, would “run over anyone who didn’t get out of his way”; and Larry Cohen, a back from Columbus, was so neat that “every time he would hit the ground, he would have to brush himself off as soon as he got up.”

Then there was Macon’s James Barnett. He had played for the Minnesota Vikings and “could run that ball. If he ever got outside, he was gone.” In addition to area players on the Columbus Warriors, Charles Poundes of Columbus played for Chattanooga and former Mississippi State quarterback Billy “Tootie” Hill played for Huntsville.

The Columbus Warriors, though, did not last the full season. The story I was told was that before a mid-season game with a large crowd at Magnolia Bowl, one of the team representatives came down to the sidelines to speak to the team. He told them that he had the money for the team and would also pick up the gate receipts and pay them at halftime. They never saw him again, and Bunky and Ed said they remembered that led to the team folding.

Ed said he was left with a game program, several bad checks from the team and memories of Mississippi’s first professional football team. The story about the theft of the money may or may not have happened that way, but it is a great story and something sure happened that caused the team to fold mid-season.

The online Pro Football Archives has the 1964 record for the Columbus Warriors. Their first game was scheduled for Magnolia Bowl against Huntsville in July but was a forfeit. On July 25, 1964, they lost to the Gadsden Raiders at Magnolia Bowl, 23-6. They then beat the Orlando Broncos in Orlando, 14-13. They next lost to the Jacksonville (Fla) Robbins at the Magnolia Bowl, 28-6, on Aug. 8. On Aug. 15, they lost to the Chattanooga Cherokees, 25-7, in Chattanooga. On Aug. 22, they lost at Orlando, 44-13, with a notation “moved from Columbus.” They played two more games on the road and then forfeited the rest of the season, including two more games scheduled for Magnolia Bowl.

What really went on with the Columbus Warriors and their demise? If only the old Magnolia Bowl could talk.

Rufus Ward is a local historian.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

READER FAVORITES

• 

  Our View: Betting on trouble

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 12 hours ago