Jackson Free Press

The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame was the site for a pep rally of sorts. As I walked through the doors, cheerleaders from all over the metro area greeted me.

They came from Provine, Murrah, Pearl, Brandon, Germantown, Ridgeland and other areas surrounding the main hall of the venue, and they were excited and bubbly as they prepared to cheer.

The pep squads certainly set the stage, but they weren't the only ones there. Media from around the state gathered at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame for a sneak peak at the film "Mississippi Gridiron Gold," which takes a look at high school football in the state. It's tagline: "Small Towns, Big Football."

Coaches from area colleges and high schools were on hand, too, as well as coaches who appeared in the film. The Mississippi Sports Council announced the release of the film, which Terry Duffie and Ennis Proctor (a Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame member) directed, and X.M. Frascogna Jr produced.

Through "Gridiron Gold," I learned that Yazoo CIty claimed victory in Mississippi's first football game played in Winona in 1905. Now, 112 high schools play football across the stae.

The film includes interviews about the impact of football across Mississippi with coaches such as Lace Pogue of South Panola, Bobby Hall of Madison Central and Willie Collins of Provine.

Coaches often act as father figures and mentors to young men from single-parent families, and troubled neighborhoods and homes. The impact these coaches have often determines what kind of adults these young men will become.

Football teaches kids across the state important life lessons and offers many of them a way of getting into college. Whole towns can rally around the sport.

On Friday nights, in many small towns across the South, high school football is more than a game. It's a weekly can't-miss event. There is an old saying when it comes to football: "The last one out of town, turn out the lights."

Every August, you can count on stadiums filled to the brim with fans. Hope runs high each new season with players and fans alike dreaming of reaching Jackson to play for a state title at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium.

"Gridiron Gold" got its start in 2006, when the Wharton Business Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania distinguished the state of Mississippi for having the best high-school football in America. The Magnolia State was considered a better state for high-school football than California, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and even Texas.

Madison Central coach Bobby Hall made a great point in the film. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said that faith, family and football are the three major things people care about in our state.

But he also went on to discuss the fact that sometimes those priorities can get out of whack; football can become all-consuming. For many, it has become a 365-day-a-year obsession.

In the clip we watched at the Sports Hall of Fame, one coach talked about how most people remember the superstars, but that it is often other players that become important.

Those players, the coach explained, come back after college and start families in the very same towns they grew up in, and they provide the next generation of players. The kids who grow up and come home to teach, run businesses and more are the ones who keep the football program going.

They also connect the future with the past. Towns across the state have seen generations of the same family play high-school football for the same school. Those legacies make our state special.

The film has been made possible through partnering sponsorships with State Farm, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, Mississippi Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Center, Coca-Cola, St. Dominic Hospital and D1 Jackson.

After a private showing of the film at Malco Grandview Cinema for the Mississippi Association of Coaches on July 18, the film will then be available to the public.

Stay updated at msgridirongold.com, and be on the lookout for show times. If the rest of the film is as good as the clip I got to see, it will be worth the watch.