STARKVILLE — Starkville High School athletic director Stan Miller does not believe in symbolic awards.
After being named the state’s top athletic program for the 2011-12 school year in Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A, Miller got his legal pad out and started making plans.
Miller was already planning a trophy to recognize the Yellow Jackets’ achievements.
“I’m going to Tally’s Trophies (in Raleigh) right after the Fourth of July,” Miller said. “They make the gold ball basketball trophies for the state champions. We are going to develop this all-sports trophy.”
For more than two decades, the Clarion-Ledger has compiled an annual listing of the top athletic programs in each of the MHSAA’s six classes. Each school receives points for different levels of postseason advancement in each of the MHSAA’s 22 sanctioned sports.
Starkville High paced the state’s 32 Class 5A schools with a total of 397 points. The Jackets outpaced Oxford by a total of 23.5 points. Overall, Starkville finished third in the state behind Class 6A powers Tupelo (437.5 points) and Madison Central (431).
Tupelo won the overall title for the 18th time in 25 seasons. The Golden Wave had an amazing eight state championships. Madison Central has won the other seven all-sports titles.
“As I have always said before, athletic directors do not win all-sports trophies, so it’s the coaches and players who do that,” Miller said. “My job was to make sure our coaches were working as hard as they could with our kids and making sure they are working with their programs in the summer.”
Starkville High received some credit in 19 different varsity sports. Only Tupelo, Madison Central and Starkville scored in that many. Few Class 5A teams were close to that total.
Of the major sports, SHS football played for the state championship, boys basketball lost in the state semifinal round, girls basketball lost in the first round of the playoffs, while baseball lost in the second round of the playoffs.
The Yellow Jackets won their lone state championship in boys soccer, which was the first ever for that program. Girls soccer also advanced to the second round of the playoffs.
“Our goal this year was to win that all-sports trophy, since it’s never been done before here in Starkville. So I knew moving down to 5A, we had a tremendous chance to do it.”
From a local standpoint, Columbus High finished 19th in Class 6A with 134.5 total points.
In Class 5A, New Hope placed 10th with 178 total points. The Trojans were buoyed by postseason appearances in girls basketball, boys basketball and baseball, as well as a state championship in slow-pitch softball and runner-up finish in fast-pitch softball.
Pontotoc won Class 4A with 341 points. Caledonia was 14th with 116 points.
St. Andrew’s won Class 3A with 283 points. Madison St. Joseph won Class 2A with 248 points. East Webster was sixth with 139.5 points. St. Aloysius won Class 1A with 221.5 points.
Just completing his second full school year as Starkville athletic director, the former principal at the school set achieving this goal as a top priority when he returned to the Golden Triangle in 2009.
“Come to find out we beat Oxford by about 20-30 points and Pearl really fell down the list so it became a goal we could reach.”
The Yellow Jackets do not plan to stop there. Coach Jamie Miller had more than 100 players out for spring practice. A new field house is coming to the end zone of the football stadium. Several sports will use the locker room and weight room facilities at the new complex.
In boys basketball, Greg Carter has made the program a regular in Jackson. Girls basketball has returned to the postseason under Kristie Williams. New baseball coach Brian Jones inherits a defending region champion.
In short, Miller expects the success to continue. He admits what separates his coaches from others is their desire and ability to work with the student-athletes 12 months out of the year.
“We want coaches that really care about their athletes,” Miller said. “We want coaches who don’t treat this as a three- or four-month commitment. We want them involved with their players on a year-round basis. That can include athletics, academics and anything else that comes up along the way.”
In the meanwhile, now is the time to celebrate.
“We will have banners made when we come up here in August,” Miller said. “We’ll have a cookout for all the players and coaches.”
And eventually, the Yellow Jackets will indeed have a trophy.
“We’re going to be the first school to actually have one and we’re going to have it,” Miller said.
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 47 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
