(This is a column of opinion by SouthMiss6 Sports Director Curtis Rockwell, a former Moss Point football player.)

MOSS POINT — In all likelihood, a liitle less than a year from now, the Moss Point football team will once again load up in a couple of “yellow dog” school buses and head back across Jefferson Street to face long-time arch-rival Pascagoula one more time.

That would mark the 86th all-time meeting in the “Battle of the Cats” between the Tigers and Panthers in a series that dates back exactly 100 years to 1925.

And, as hard as it is for this former Moss Point Tiger to say, that should be the end of this annual affair on the football field. At least for a while.

Pascagoula visited Dantzler Street Friday and completely embarrassed MPHS once again, 47-0. This comes on the heels of a 48-0 home win by the Panthers last season, which marked the largest deficit in the series in, at that point, 94 years, since 1930.

Those two games, combined with a 31-0 decision in 2023 also at MPHS, leaves the count at 126-0 over the last three meetings, which is the largest such three game deficit in the 100-year history of the series.

It also marks five straight wins in the series for the Panthers, a number matched for the second-longest such streak by PHS in series history. And, it’s the second such streak for the Panthers in the past 15 seasons for the first time ever.

But wait, let me stop for a second and say this. This is really hard for me to write. I am a proud 1982 MPHS graduate, and spent three years as a Tiger under the guidance of the legendary Billy Wayne Miller.

I have been a part of the series for over 50 years, as far back as when coach Miller allowed my father to take a young Tiger-to-be on the sidelines several times during the historic 1974 Moss Point season.

After a career as a three-year starter under Miller, I was fortunate to receive a full athletic scholarship to Ole Miss. But bad knees, not touchdowns, would be my biggest contribution during my college career.

But even during my time in the “Halls of Academia” in Oxford, Hammond. La., and Hattiesburg working first on an undergraduate and then my Masters degree, I always kept close tabs on the Tigers. I was always proud to let others know that I once wore the uniform.

So much so that just five years after graduating from MPHS, I was asked by a sports writer at The Mississippi Press if I’d like to join the staff as a correspondent.

And I was hooked. Since then, I have worked for four different daily newspapers (The Mississippi Press, The Sun Herald, The Picayune Item and The Hattiesburg American) and now SouthMiss6 Sports. I have continued to cover the Tiger program for most of the past four decades.

But, my oh my, how times have changed.

Even with the two separate five game win streaks produced by the Panthers in the past 15 seasons, for the first time ever, the biggest number that sticks out, though, is that 126-0 stat.

Pascagoula has now won 11 of the last 13 “Battle of the Cats” contests for the first time in the 100-year history of the series.

It’s time for adults at both schools to say “No Mas (Point)”.

This game only serves as a money maker to a certain extent for both schools. It certainly doesn’t do either team any good anymore, like it did for so many seasons.

No one on God’s green earth can convince me that with four straight Class 7A schools coming up in the next 23 days and then perennial state power Picayune on tap to open region play for Pascagoula, that any good came from that trip to Moss Point last week.

I think veteran PHS head coach Lewis Sims, a former MPHS linebacker and head coach as well, would agree. In fact, the outcome will probably serve as more of a hindrance than anything else and possibly even as an engine of false confidence in areas where if they were facing a more formidable foe in week one it would have served the Panthers much better moving forward.

And the same thing for the Tigers. New MPHS head coach Derek Jenkins didn’t deserve to face that ass-whipping in all phases coming out of the chute right away like he had to do in starting his career. Absolutely no good came out of this game for either side.

And it’s time for it to stop. At least for the foreseeable future.

The two teams are contracted to finish the current home and home normal agreement with a return trip to War Memorial Stadium next August. But, just think….

How about Pascagoula vs. Ocean Springs in week one and Moss Point vs. East Central or Perry Central? Or how about this, PHS vs, OSHS and MPHS vs. Resurrection?

And perhaps the building blocks are already beginning to stack up for the the phasing out of this series over the next 15 months or so.

After all, Sims is in all likelihood set to retire in December at the end of this season. And I know for a fact that he in no way shape or form wanted to have anything to do with ending the “Battle of the Cats’ and that’s certainly understandable.

But, new PHS Athletics Director John Archie is in his first few months on the job. And along with Jenkins at MPHS, new Tiger Athletics Coordinator Delena James is in place as well (Moss Point no longer has an AD).

Plus, PHS, in all probability, will have a new head football coach in place in less than six months. Why saddle him with the same albatross to open the season that Sims has faced recently

And, it’s very possible when bi-annual reclassification is done by the MHSAA next Fall, Moss Point could drop down to Class 3A for the first time. That would be three different drops in classification for MPHS in less than 20 years, almost unheard of.

Pascagoula, which seems set in Class 6A for the near future, has never played a football program three classifications lower than it ever in the history of its program.

And really, why would they? “Tradition,” some might say, as I might would have even as recent as five or six years ago.

But thankfully, with Sims’ career in the series over, tradition has the chance to be put aside by the new faces in the new places mentioned above, and hopefully they will collectively all make the right decision and place the series on hiatus at least for a while.

In his last act in his final “Battle of the Cats” ever, Sims, the only man ever to serve as head coach on both sidelines in the history of the series, instructed his players to take a knee on the final play of the game deep in Moss Point territory to keep from embarrassing his alma mater even more.

Now, it’s time for the rest of the adults involved with this series to do the same.

(This is a column of opinion by SouthMiss6 Sports Director Curtis Rockwell, a former Moss Point football player.)