My First Magnolia Academy Team – 1977

Magnolia Academy Baseball, Stories 91-100 2 Minutes

(#94)

The 2022 baseball season has begun.

Forty-five years ago in 1977, I began my coaching career as a 22 year old gunslinger at Magnolia Academy located in West Jackson.

The 30 man roster included six seniors: Richard Kelly, Barry Jones, Billy Williams, Al Puckett, Mark Brown, and Randy Williams.

6 juniors: Robby Stevens, Phil Wooley, Johnny Prouty, Rod Hudson, Jay Wesbrooks, and Chuck Atkins.

9 sophomores: Jeff East, Bob Leach, Ricky Chisolm, Nick Myers, Stan Prewitt, Paul Winnon, Timmy Jordan, Johnny Tanner, and Stan Snowden.

4 freshmen: Timmy Parkman, David Kelly, David Alford, and Rob Harrell.

4 eighth graders: Steven Dickey, Tim McMillian, David Black, and David Cox and 1 seventh grader: Jay Albright.

The team finished 20-9 and tied Brandon Academy for the South Central AA Championship.

The Raiders were pretty good, especially offensively, and probably could have won the State AA championship if there had not been a Brandon Academy Rebels team. The team was coached by Lamont Echols and Cary Aldridge and led by seniors Danny Fulton, Mike Giordana, Hugh Bridges, Glenn Harris, Gird Warren, Rodney Bounds, and Steve Gardner.

Six of our nine losses were to the Rebels.

But things would only get better for the Raiders in the five seasons to follow.

I found an old mimeographed stat sheet and going into the final regular season game with East Rankin in early May, sophomore Ricky Chisolm led the team in most offensive and pitching categories. The trend would follow for #12 in 1978 and 1979.

Ricky led the team in runs scored, hits, RBI, doubles, batting average (.467), total bases, on-base percentage, and stolen bases. On the mound, he led the team with 50 innings pitched, 70 strikeouts, was 6-2 (so was Richard Kelly) with an ERA of 1.82.

Freshman Rob Harrell was right behind Chisolm in just about every offensive category. Rob batted .441. He batted over .400 in every season he played, including junior college.

I wouldn’t change a thing about my Magnolia Academy years. We won 168 games, and unprecedented 26 championships, including 3 consecutive State AA titles (and should have won another one in 1978, too), won 31 games in 1979 and were the first Mississippi high school baseball team to win 40 games in a season (1981).

Front row: Barry Jones, Rod Hudson, Tim McMillian, David Cox, Steven Dickey, Jay Albright, David Kelly, Paul Winnon, Nick Myers, Ricky Chisolm. Second row: Bob Leach, Johnny Prouty, David Black, Rob Harrell, Phil Wooley, David Alford, Jeff East, Timmy Jordan, Stan Snowden, Al Puckett. Third row: Chuck Atkins, Jay Wesbrooks, Robby Stevens, Stan Prewitt, Timmy Parkman, Billy Williams, Richard Kelly, Mark Brown, Randy Williams, Johnny Tanner.
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2 thoughts on “My First Magnolia Academy Team – 1977”

  1. Coach Clark,
    The team back in those days were very ambitious and loved to play the game. But more than that they loved to play the game for you.

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  2. I played for Prep and for the Bakers legion team. In the summer of 79 after my junior year, we had the bases loaded and Nick picked me off of second base. Just to prove it was a fluke, two innings later, with the bases loaded again, he picked me off again at second base; however the shortstop muffed the throw and I escaped eternal humiliation

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