2 Coast 5A football teams have a lot to prove. Coaches plan path out of the basement.
Finding wins on the football field in South Mississippi is never easy.
Most schools go through peaks and valleys over the years in search of consistency and championships. Some schools, though, linger in the valleys for longer than they hope.
Two schools on the Coast have gone through multiple four-year cycles of athletes without ever seeing the postseason. West Harrison, the youngest MHSAA football program on the Gulf Coast, has not had a winning season in its 13 years of existence and have never seen the postseason.
Long Beach went to the playoffs seven times from 2005 to 2011, but haven’t been back since. The Bearcats are currently riding the longest district losing streak on the Coast at 23 games.
Both programs are in their own unique situations, but are producing similar results. How can the two Region 4-5A teams finally break through and be competitive? Just as their circumstances are unique, so are the answers to that question.
Hurdling roadblocks at West Harrison
Quincy Patrick has been the head coach for the Hurricanes since 2018. Patrick inherited a district losing streak that would stretch to over 40 games and was only ended by a COVID-forced forfeit in 2020.
Heading into his fifth season, the fourth head coach in program history is now the longest-tenured coach the school has ever had. Patrick knows more than anybody what roadblocks have been in the team’s way.
According to Patrick, one of those barriers has finally disappeared.
“The biggest obstacle was, we just got a middle school,” Patrick said at SMACM media days. “We didn’t get our kids until the ninth grade year, now we get our young men in the seventh grade. That’s paid dividends already. We’re going to have two or three kids in our program this year that played freshman football that are ready to play for us right now.”
Middle school football is a crucial early step in the development process for varsity football teams and has been critical for schools like Gulfport and Ocean Springs.
West Harrison Middle School opened in 2021 and played its first football season last fall. The Hurricanes now have a direct pipeline to develop athletes from that was sorely lacking for the last decade-plus.
The new school comes at an opportune time for the varsity program, too. Patrick’s team is bringing back 18 starters from last year and is hoping to build off last season.
An experienced squad leads to heavy attrition when seniors move on and is generally replaced by athletes groomed under the school’s system since middle school. That hasn’t been the case for the Hurricanes in the past, but now the program has a new pool of young players to work with and keep the varsity roster back-filled.
Now all that’s left for the Hurricanes is to take advantage of the newfound depth. They’re led this season by running back Melvin Pickens, who rushed for over 1,000 yards in Patrick’s traditional wing-T offense in 2021.
A difficult schedule does lie ahead, though.
“Our district schedule, no offense to anybody, it’s the SEC of 5A football,” Patrick said. “Week after week, if you look at it, there’s no breaks.”
West Harrison has to play the Bay Tigers in non-district competition and must face East Central, Gautier and Picayune on the road in district play.
The Hurricanes open the regular season Aug. 26 against Bay High.
Finding new athletes in Long Beach
Further south Long Beach’s new head coach Jacob Massey is solving the roster crunch in a different way. He’s successfully battling the issue currently plaguing some of the biggest schools on the Coast: sport specialization.
Massey has beefed up the Bearcats’ numbers by recruiting players from other sports and making them multi-sport athletes.
“I went into the school and I found players,” Massey said. “First thing that I officially did at Long Beach was go to a basketball game. I saw the point guard and I was like ‘wow this sucker can move.’ We went and recruited him hard. There are a couple of kids on the baseball team that are pretty good players and we went out and got a couple of them. We had a little success in the spring game and we had a couple kids at school say ‘I want to be a part of this.’”
According to Massey, the football program has roughly doubled in size over the offseason from just over 40 to 90-95 students.
The added depth is critical throughout the course of a long season and the lack of it has hurt the Bearcats in the past. Long Beach has allowed over 400 points in a season in three of the last four years.
Building a new foundation is a challenge, but it’s a challenge Massey was seeking when he took the job.
“I wanted something that I could call my own and build my own,” Massey said. “I didn’t want to follow someone else’s legacy. I wanted to build my own way. My entire life I haven’t been scared of hard work. Has it been a hard job up to this point? Absolutely, but we have some really good kids and I think we’ve got some pretty decent players. The cupboard is not bare.”
The cupboard includes Colt Busby, who is set to line up across the offense in various positions as the team’s primary ball carrier.
Long Beach also has a pair of linebackers in Lazerick Brooks and Taj Aubert who will work under defensive coordinator Benji Foreman to help reverse the Bearcats’ defensive struggles.
The first chance to end the district streak comes on Sept. 23 at home against Vancleave. The Bearcats’ first regular season game is Aug. 26 against Pass Christian.
