By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

For one of the first times this century, the opening week of prep football season in the “Southern Six” will be almost exclusively a family affair.

Of the 23 teams sanctioned by the Mississippi High School Activities Association in action on that date, 16 of them will face a fellow foe from one of the lower six counties in South Mississippi.

Eight of the 15 contests on Fri., Aug 29th, will feature “Southern Six” squads battling it out with one another. Ocean Springs opens the season the night before on Thursday, Aug., 28th in Meridian. Seven other teams in that footprint face foes from other parts of the state.

The annual Battle of the Cats in Jackson County between longtime arch-rivals Pascagoula and Moss Point is by far the most traditional rivalry of the eight game schedule in week one. The Panthers head across Jefferson Street to Dantzler Stadium to face the home-standing Tigers.

Veteran Pascagoula head coach enters his 15th season at the helm of the Panthers. This will mark the 28th Battle of the Cats that Sims has been involved in.

The Battle of the Cats is one of the longest standing rivalries in Mississippi,” Sims said, in an exclusive interview with SouthMiss6 Sports. He is the only head coach to patrol both sidelines in the almost 90-year history of the series.

“Having played in and coached in it, and as the only head coach to do it from both sides, I’ve seen how much it means to both communities and that hasn’t changed in the 40 years I’ve been around this game.”

Sims led his alma mater,MPHS as the head coach of the Tigers from 2008-2010, before he moved south to take the helm of the Panthers. Overall, he has been a part of 28 Pascagoula-Moss Point games including three as a standout linebacker for the Tigers and seven as an MPHS assistant coach before he took over as the head Tiger.

And for Sims, personally, the game has long been a “Family Affair” as well.

“My mom was a 1958 Moss Point grad and my mother-in-law graduated from Pascagoula the same year,” Sims added. “It is even more exciting now that we play the first game against each other since we can’t play the last.”

In addition to the Pascagoula-Moss Point game, the other seven all “Southern Six” affairs are Picayune at Gulfport, West Harrison at Poplarville, St. Martin at Vancleave, Gautier at George County, Bay High at Pearl River Central, Long Beach at Pass Christian and Stone at Hancock.