NEW HOPE — When Brandt Galloway is asked, the first thing he remembers about the 1996 season is the first practice. Galloway wrote a book, Chasing Zero, about the historic season, published in 2015. In that first practice he vividly recalls a group of seniors locked in with a chip on their shoulder, ready to make up for their missed opportunities.
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The book isn’t just a history lesson, it’s also an expression of the impact of sports. For Galloway and his teammates the experience permanently changed their approach to life on and off the field, and it all started with a drive to finish the job where they had come up short the previous year.
It was a cold practice at the start of the spring semester, but one which saw everyone sharp and focused after a year of thinking about the missed opportunity the year before. Galloway recalled assistant coach Tim Dowdy’s message at the end of practice, saying, “I’m proud of you. You practiced hard today and I expect you to do this all year. Great start.”
“I thought he was going to get onto us,” Galloway said, recalling the talk. “I think we all appreciated the business-like approach of it. Like, let’s just get to work.”
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The team finished with a perfect 43-0 record, defeating Tishomingo County, Northwest Rankin and Itawamba in the playoffs for the right to face George County in the state championship series.
The Trojans had been there a year before, coming up just short against a strong Petal program. That experience paid off this time around as they won, 7-3 and 8-2, respectively to bring home the third state championship in school history.
“That group of seniors was talented, but we had some really heralded guys from the year before and the year under us,” Galloway said. “Honestly, I don’t think any of us thought we’d be nearly as good as we were, but we had the right attitude and everyone bought into it. The year before left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, we knew we could get back there and that was the goal.”
1996 was the fourth season under legendary coach Stacy Hester, who had seen three teams come close in the playoffs but ultimately fall short. The group that came in the next year, especially the seniors, were motivated to make that year count.
“The year before in ‘95 we lost to a really good Petal team, ” Hester recalled. “We had been in the playoffs before that so when we lost the state championship we knew we could make another run. Our seniors were around and involved in trying to change the culture, act right, do all those little things, and they were great role models.”
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Hester recalls the seniors doing the math to work out just how many games it would take to win the title without a loss. In both his book and memory, Galloway depicts a team of leaders from within, something which he believes made the difference between 43-1 and 43-0.
“It wasn’t always blowout wins.” he said. “We almost lost a few, and we won 11 games that year in the last inning. That was pretty dang impressive to not slide somewhere along the way.”
“People say maybe we should’ve lost one, but those kids didn’t like losing,” Hester said of the team. “They hated it. They put the effort in to do whatever it took to be undefeated, and they weren’t going to be denied. They were so focused to be that team to do something nobody had heard of before.”
Hester has coached baseball in Mississippi for more than three decades. He spent 18 years at New Hope before taking over at Brandon. After retiring from MHSAA coaching, he moved to MAIS and is now with Manchester Academy, where he won his 1000th game as a head coach last season.
Throughout a storied career with many notable teams and players, Hester still recognizes the 1996 team as a benchmark year, a record-setting run that etched New Hope’s name into the annals of baseball history.
“We as coaches talk about success at the end of the season and what it takes, but the players were saying those things to me and it was all down to their will and their attitude. That was special seeing kids buy in and get rewarded in that way. If it had been 42-1 it still would have been a great year but it’s nothing like 43-0. They couldn’t beat us because we were so focused on what we had to do, and that will definitely go down as my signature season.”
Hester would go on to win two more state championships in 1998 and 2003 before leaving the program in 2009, when he was succeeded by a former player, Lee Boyd.
Boyd watched the 1996 team from afar as a middle schooler, but the significance was felt in his career as both a player and coach of the Trojans.
“It was a huge deal on a national stage; it was certainly unprecedented,” Boyd said. “I was in junior high during that time but I know a lot of guys who played at that time and heard all the stories. It was an unbelievably special year, and a record that will probably never be broken.”
Boyd’s teams have remained perennial playoff contenders, winning state championships in 2013, 2014 and 2019. In a way, teams with past success will always try to live up to that history, but when Boyd sees the 43-0 outfield sign, he sees a source of pride for every Trojan past, present or future that drives them to be great.
“It’s one of those where the sign will stay on the wall forever, players will come back and see that sign and it’s a real sense of pride in the program on a state and national level, and for our guys to see that sign it gives them a motivation to uphold the tradition we have here,” Boyd said.
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