Choctaw County season brings back the memories

Long before I made my way to becoming a sportswriter for the Starkville Daily News,

I was a sixth grader at Ackerman

Elementary School with a love for sports.

I happened to be a lucky fellow.

The year was 1996 and the Ackerman Indians were good that season. They were really good. Every

Friday night, fans packed the stands at little old Dale Davidson Field in downtown Ackerman and watched as the Indians knocked off opponent after opponent.

That team was the very first team I ever wrote a sports story about. At 11-years-old, little Joel wrote a recap of Ackerman’s historic playoff win on the road over powerhouse Taylorsville. My memory over two decades later is a little foggy, but it had been years since Taylorsville had lost a game before Ackerman ended the streak. It was a special day in Ackerman. I put pen to paper and wrote about it for our Ackerman Elementary School newspaper, The Papoose Press, which sold for 25 cents per copy each edition.

That Indian team went on to lose to Bruce in the Class 2A State championship. One year later, Ackerman was the one holding the golden football though. The Indians stormed through the regular season and shut out every single opponent in the playoffs, ultimately dismantling Booneville for the state crown.

I could go on and on. Year after year, winning football teams came through Ackerman. The coaches changed, but the success remained. Whether it was Ricky Woods, Steve Denson or Adam Dillinger at the helm, there were many good times in Ackerman in the 1990s and 2000s.

It’s also worth remembering what was happening just down the road from Ackerman. The Weir Lions were putting on a show year after year as well. You could just about take it to the bank that one Friday in December, you were getting out of school early or getting the day off because one of the schools in the county, if not both, were going to play in Jackson for a state championship.

After Ackerman and Weir merged to form Choctaw County High School a few years ago, the wins didn’t come quite as often in the county as they once did. There were still some solid seasons for sure, but nothing spectacular.