Posted on 10/27/2012 3:07:54 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Warrior Field on Old Highway 11 here is flanked by the massive Temple Baptist Church on one side and a water tower with "Oak Grove Warriors" emblazoned across it on the other. Nearby are places with names like Lumberton and Purvis, towns that rest atop a local salt dome where nuclear bombs were test-detonated near the height of the cold war. The local radio features music by bluesmen with names like Ironing Board Sam and Honeyboy Edwards, though the dense forest of trees - the reason this area is called the Pine Belt - interferes with the signal every now and again. Once inside the stadium, ticketholders are greeted by the clanging of cowbells - the Warrior Field gift shop sells cowbells for $25, a dollar extra for one with an Oak Grove Warriors sticker - and the welcoming smiles of two young women eager to sell tickets for the 50-50 raffle drawing at halftime. For all its regional specificity, a fall Friday night at Warrior Field is a scene similar to the one played out in rural high school stadiums across the country each week. But flip to Page 13 of the game program and everything changes. There, in the upper right-hand corner, is a familiar face among the photos of the Oak Grove coaching staff. "Brett Favre Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks," it reads below the photograph. "We lost our offensive coordinator right before the season started when he took a job as a principal," Oak Grove Coach Nevil Barr said. "I thought, 'Shoot, let me check with Brett to see if he'd be interested.' " Favre lives in the area and has a daughter who attends Oak Grove High School, which has about 1,600 students.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
The little town, the little school and Favre will probably all benefit from that.
I grew up in a little town in Eastern New Mexico (population <30,000) and had a coach who grew weary of the world, but still wanted to coach.
In the late 1960's, some of his former players would show up during the summer to work out and scrimmage with us.
Thanks to him, I had the privilege at the age of 17 or 18 of teaming up with or trying to defend against folks like Pete Maravich, Rick Mount and Elvin Hayes in a High School gym in the middle of the Summer with nobody watching.
Priceless. Experiences that cannot be repeated.
The only players in that program who went on to make a name for themselves in the sport were Dick Hunsaker, Bubba Jennings and Norman Franse.
It was good, it was great and I would not trade that experience for anything.
There are a bunch of lucky kids and a lucky community out there to be exposed to that sort of thing from Favre.
Sorry, we’re talking basketball here.
Mississippi ping
Great story, and good for Brett.
Oak Grove? I guess there was no money in coaching Hattiesburg High...lol
Go Dawgs! Beat 'Bama!
As a Bear fan, I hated having to play Favre. To see that he’s doing high school football is really a fantastic way to give back. Warms my heart.
Teaching is the best way to become immortal.
Our daughter just got her Master’s from Southern Miss. Hattiesburg is all right, but tonight it’s all Dawgs in Tuscaloosa.
Not a bad article, but full of the usual New York Times journalistic license. Oak Grove High School is in Lamar County, which is part of the Hattiesburg Metropolitan Statistical Area (population 142,842 as of the 2012 census), and plays 6A ball, meaning it is one of Mississippi’s thirty-two largest high schools. I guess if you’re from New York this might seem like a rural area, but in the Gulf South we call this a city.
I have no idea where the writer found a radio station playing the blues, unless it was Public Radio in Mississippi’s weekly blues show or perhaps WUSM, broadcasting from the University of Southern Mississippi (enrollment 14,795 at the Hattiesburg campus, located only five miles from Oak Grove High School).
As for the “faint glow of a Dollar General sign in the distance” (see full article), the distance is approximate 100 yards, as Warrior Field is directly behind the strip shopping center where the Dollar General is located.
Don’t get me wrong, Brett coaching at OGHS is still a great story. His oldest daughter is an Oak Grove graduate, and he’s worked out/mentored the team for years, but it was still surprising that he agreed to accept the Offensive Coordinator position. It’s just amusing that the NYT thinks that making Hattiesburg sound like Mayberry improves the story.
Heart-warming. Glad to see that Mr. Favre finally found a place.
I call BS on that line, but what do you expect from the NY Slimes? IFAIK, every underground test on US soil was done on the Nevada test range.
Thanks. I stand corrected.
About the same number of people who walk through Grand Central Station between 8:30 am and 8:45 am on an average work day.
He needs to move up to college and help out Southern Miss!
He needs to move up to college and help out Southern Miss!
“”We lost our offensive coordinator right before the season started when he took a job as a principal,” Oak Grove Coach Nevil Barr said. “I thought, ‘Shoot, let me check with Brett to see if he’d be interested.’ “
Ha! Brett is approachable. Imagine that.
“There was, however, one minor hitch: Barr did not have any money in his budget to pay Favre.
“He said, ‘Let me get this right: you want me to get up early to come to work every day, work at night, work on the weekends and you’re not going to pay me a dime?’ “ Barr recalled. “I said, ‘That’s right.’ He said, ‘That sounds like the perfect job for me.’ “
Good for him! He’s a good man.
“After a last-gasp pass by Meridian was intercepted to end the game, Oak Grove students stormed the field. Asked how it felt to orchestrate a comeback as a coach rather than as a player, Favre cracked a slight smile and said, “It feels just as beautiful.”
He then turned and ran toward the celebration on the field, eager to join in the fun.”
I’ll give him that, but it’s the last time. lol
Well, H'burg High apparently didn't ask, and Brett's daughter DOES attend Oak Grove. ;o) He also attends St. Thomas Aquinas Parish at Univ. of Sou. Miss, I have family members who are in that Parish and see him all the time.
LOL! Hattiesburg is a fairly large city, by Mississippi standards. It happens to be my hometown, and I'm a Southern Miss grad, as well!
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