Great Team Enjoys Homecoming

HATTIESBURG------Fifty five years ago a group of football players joined hands in Hattiesburg to build one of the best football teams in college football history. Head Coach Pie Vann, later elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, had two full time assistant coaches, Clyde (Heifer) Sutart, the backfield coach, and H.A. (Bear) Smith, the line coach, who specialized in end coaching. Vann, an old line coach, worked with the interior linemen.
The 1952 and 1953 team gathered for another reunion the night before this year's Southern Mississippi-Southern Methodist game. Southern Mississippi was known as Mississippi Southern in the Fifties. Their great players won Little All-American and Mid-Bracket All-America honors. None have been elected to the National Football Foundation's College Football Hall of Fame as yet.
The Honors Court needs to address this issue and do it now while some of these stalwarts are still alive. The 1952 team lost only to Alabama. The 1953 team beat Alabama, 25-19, and the University of Georgia, 14-0. Bart Starr was the Crimson quarterback, Zeke Bratkowski was the Bulldogs' signal caller. Red Drew coached the Tide, Wally Butts guided the Georgians.
Bratkowswki had been averaging two and three touchdown passes a game. The Black and Gold shut him down. Alabama had been picked by Grantland Rice to win the national title in hiss pre-season predictions. The Tide had bashed Syracuse in the Orange Bowl and had most of the
players returning. They had a big tackle named Sid Youngleman, who physically was stouter than anyone he had played to date.
Between the 1952 and 1953 seasons, two GI's had been recruited, a Marine named Don Owens, who was six-six and 260, and Jim (Coon Dog) Davis, 6-5 and 245. Davis was an eight year army veteran, Owens served four years in the Marines.
Southern also had a plucky little field general from a Junior College, Billy Jarrell of Pearl River and a senior right halfback named Tony Rouchon, who was also a champion Golden Glover. The two running backs, Fullback Bucky McElroy, and Left Halfback Hugh Laurin Pepper, had out-gained Heisman Trophy winner Billy Vessells and Fullback Buck McPhail of Oklahoma in 1952.
McElroy was a bull-dozing 200-pound senior from Monroe, La. tagged the Black Knight of the Bayous. He was not an African-American. Pepper was a jet-propelled 190-pound junior who was as swift as he was elusive.
Owens has passed on but Pepper, McElroy, Jarrell, Davis, and many of their teammates were back for the Reunion. A tribute was made to the teammates who had passed away, as well as their coaches, the one trainer Fly Oakes, who also was the equipment manager, and the athletic director Reed Green, who was the head coach before and after World War II.
Coon Dog Davis suggested the group also sing God Bless America, which they did. The Hattiesburg sports editor who covered the team, Ace Cleveland, also is deceased. So is the President Dr. R.C. Cook, who gave total support of the athletic program.
The Athletic Publicity Director was a red-head ex-sailor from Brookhaven Jimmie McDowell, who is still around after retiring as Executive Director of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, residing in the East for 30 years before returning South to help launch the All-American Football Foundation in 1994 . Prior to joining the NFFHF McDowell had been a Sports Editor in Mississippi, Tennessee, and New Jersey. He also was the Administrator of the NFFHF and later Executive Director.
When he retired the NFFHF had 10,000 members, nearly 100 chapters , coast-to-coast, and $12,000,000 in the bank. McDowell traveled over 260 days a year in building the Foundation into a major national organization with two ex-wives to prove it.
In addition to McElroy, Pepper, Jarrell, Owens, Rouchon, and Davis, Southern had two stalwart ends, Stonewall Jackson Brumfield and Richard Caldwell, a great linebacker Jon T. Shepherd, who had ten flat speed, and an excellent place-kicker, McElroy. In 1953 players had to go both ways, McElroy played 60 minutes against Georgia. Pepper was a super pass defender and kick returner.
When Southern shocked the football world, much like Appalachian State upending Michigan this year, the sports world called it the biggest college upset since little Centre College went East to beat Harvard, sparked by a fellow named Bo McMillan.
There are other Little All-American who are not as yet in the College Football Hall of Fame and a special induction should be held in South Bend, Indiana, where the Hall is located and these well deserving "Small" College players should be inducted. And while they are still alive to smell the Roses.
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