By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

(Editor’s Note: A majority of this story first appeared in a story written by Creg Stephenson in The Mississippi Press newspaper in Oct., of 2011)

PASCAGOULA — The 1976 unbeaten Pascagoula Panther football team will be recognized Friday night.

The team will be honored at halftime during as PHS hosts D’Iberville at War Memorial Stadium, the same venue where the Panthers captured the Big 8 Conference title on Nov. 25th, 1976.

The Panthers went 12-0 that fall, capturing the second of three state championships in school history. Members of the team reunite every five years for food and fellowship, and did so again at Friday’s game against Gautier at War Memorial Stadium.

“When I look back on it, the goals we had set as sophomores started to take shape as seniors. We didn’t have the talent that some other teams had, but the one thing we had was a group of guys who had played three years together as a cohesive unit.” Guice Smith, the starting quarterback in 1976, told Stephenson at the reunion 15 years ago.

Pascagoula won its first state championship in 1947 but didn’t get another opportunity to hoist the state’s big trophy for nearly 30 years (and wouldn’t win a third until 1987). Third-year coach Johnny Woitt steadily built the 1976 Panthers into contenders in the Big 8, the state’s large-school athletic league in those pre-Mississippi High School Activities Association playoff days.

Smith directed a talented Pascagoula backfield that included fellow senior Ricky Conerly at fullback. But the star of the show was tailback Ray Charles “Rooster” Jones, who is widely regarded as the greatest high school football player in PHS history and among the handful of best ever in Mississippi.

“He was the best I ever saw, quite simply,” Walter Thornton, a junior defensive tackle on the 1976 team and who also served as the voice of Panthers football on the radio for many years, told Stephenson at the reunion 15 years ago. Thornotn passed away in 2014.

“He had a combination of speed and confidence that you don’t see very often. We also had a great offensive line that year, and one of the best defenses around. We were good because we went up against each other every day in practice.”

After beating future Pitt and NFL star Hugh Green and North Natchez 14-8 (Jones had the winning 17-yard run with 1:26 to play), Laurel 36-7 and McComb 27-12 (Jones ran for 245 yards and 4 TDs), Pascagoula beat Gulfport East 23-21 behind backup quarterback Lloyd Palmer, who was in the lineup because Smith had the flu.

Jones ran for 162 yards and a touchdown, and Lynn Thomas’ interception at the 1-yard line stopped a Gulfport East drive in a game that Thornton called, in 2011, the “greatest ever played” at War Memorial Stadium.

“That was a great, great game with a lot of talent on the field that night,” Conerly told Stephenson at the reunion 15 years ago. “That was a big rivalry because we had played those guys all the way up from junior high.”

Pascagoula then romped to October wins over North Natchez 28-6, Gulfport 43-0, Meridian 35-0 and Biloxi 28-0, with Jones rushing for at least 174 yards and two touchdowns in every game. The latter win gave the Panthers the Big 8 Coastal Zone title.

After a 22-0 win over Hattiesburg, the Panthers survived the “Battle of the Cats” at Moss Point’s Dantzler Stadium, winning 14-7 after stopping Tigers quarterback James McCune on the 1-yard line in the final five minutes.

Pascagoula won the Big 8 South championship with a 12-6 rematch victory over North Natchez, setting up the state championship game against Greenville. The Panthers cruised to a 21-0 victory at War Memorial Stadium, as Jones ran for 87 yards and a touchdown to end the year with 1,900 yards and 28 scores, while Smith also ran for a score and Joey Stevens recovered a blocked punt in the end zone.

Woitt — who would coach at Pascagoula for another four seasons before moving to the Florida Panhandle, where he recently retired as a school superintendent — received a new car from a local dealership in addition to the gold football trophy that’s still in the Pascagoula fieldhouse.

“We went into the season with the goal of going undefeated and winning the state championship, which is pretty lofty when you think about it,” Conerly told Stephenson at the reunion 15 years ago. “But that’s the confidence we had with the talent and the dedication and commitment we had. It all came together for us, and everything evolved just the way we thought it would.”

More than two dozen members of that Pascagoula team went on to play college football. Guard Marc Massengale and sophomore defensive tackle Hoppy Cole played at Ole Miss, while linebacker Mark Brown played at Mississippi State.

Jones and the defensive-back combination of brothers Lynn and Wallace “Pappy” Thomas all played alongside Green at Pitt, then coached by former Biloxi standout Jackie Sherrill.

Lynn Thomas went on to win a Super Bowl ring with the San Francisco 49ers after the 1981 season, while Pappy Thomas and wide receiver Eddie Ray Walker (who starred at Southern Miss) played in the USFL.

Conerly went on to play at Delta State as did Bufford, and linebacker Ricky Rozzell ended up at DSU after starting off at Alabama and winning a pair of national titles.

Meanwhile, Stacy Carmichael, the starting defensive tackle and punter in 1976, went on to a standout baseball career at Mississippi College and Johnny Olsen, a starting defensive back in 1976, went on to enjoy an illustrious career on the baseball diamond at Tulane.

Twins Billy and Bobby Collins, both starters in the secondary as well that season, also went on to star on the baseball at UAB.