By Curtis Rockwell/Sports Director
GULFPORT — Friday night, the football team at Gulfport High will open a new season in a new stadium for the first time in 78 years.
The Admirals will christen their brand new on-campus venue by hosting Laurel at 7 p.m. Officials with the Gulfport Athletic Department confirmed to SouthMiss6 Sports on Wednesday that all systems are a go for this historic milestone in school history.

“We are very excited about opening this new stadium Friday,” new GHS Athletics Director Ricky Smith said. “The district has been committed to building something the community will be proud of, and I believe they have hit the mark. It’s going to be a phenomenal atmosphere, and I cannot wait to share the experience with everyone in attendance.”
The last time Gulfport High opened a new stadium to play in was in mid-September of 1948, when the then Gulfport Commodores beat back Brandon 38-0 in the first contest at the new stadium on 38th Ave. Later that year, a 6-0 win over Picayune in November was the game in which the new “$125,000 concrete structure” was dedicated to then Gulfport Mayor John W. Milner in a ceremony at halftime. “Named for the city’s Mayor, the stadium was financed by a bond issue and will seat 7,400” a report in the Biloxi Daily Herald stated the following day.

And for the past 78 seasons four different high school programs called that Grand Old Lady home in Gulfport, 33rd Avenue, Gulfport East and St. John.
And over those years, the Gulfport Commodores and Gulfport Admirals, which was the nickname coined after GHS and GEHS merged in the late 1970’s, played approximately 500 games in that stadium.
What actually may have been the first official high school game played on the grounds of the new stadium, which has for years served as the practice field for the Admirals and the home for the GHS track and field team, came 21 years ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when GHS beat Pascagoula 21-6 on that same site due to damage at Milner.

Gulfport certainly bid farewell to Milner in fine fashion, with a 40-7 thumping over Brandon in the Class 7A South State championship the day after Thanksgiving last year.
The Admirals went on to capture their first state title since the implementation of the state-wide playoff system in Mississippi the next week.
The new stadium, which seats about 5,000, does not have a name yet. However, the playing surface has been named “Jim Rose Field’.