Johnny Davis takes lead in local ESPN college football contest

Former Conecuh County Superintendent of Education Walter Hudson dropped by our office last Thursday to show The Courant staff an interesting article that was recently published on ESPN.com.

The article was about Texas A&M head football coach Kevin Sumlin, who recently guided the Aggies to a five-point, upset win over then-No. 1 Alabama in Tuscaloosa. According to the article, Kevin, 48, was born in Brewton, where his father William “Bill” Sumlin was a coach at Booker T. Washington High School.

Kevin’s father, Bill, grew up in Brewton, where he graduated from Southern Normal High School in 1954. Bill also played football at Southern Normal and went on to play at Kentucky State. He returned to Brewton in 1960 and began coaching at Washington High, which opened in 1959. Sumlin coached at Washington for six years and went undefeated in 1964, the year Kevin was born. Two years later, Kevin and his family moved to Indianapolis, and he went on to play football at Perdue.

One of Bill’s former basketball players, who was quoted in the ESPN article, is retired Brewton police chief, David Lovelace. Woody McCorvey of Atmore, who is now the associate athletic director at Clemson, has fond memories of playing against Sumlin’s tough Washington teams when McCorvey was a student at Escambia County Training School.

The article also mentions the time that Sumlin’s basketball team competed in a 1963 basketball tournament in Evergreen. They won one game on Friday and three on Saturday to capture first place.

Today, the Sumlin family maintains close ties to Brewton and are longtime friends with their old next-door neighbors, the Lewis family, which includes former Alabama quarterback Walter Lewis. Lewis’ claim to fame is that he was Alabama’s first black quarterback and Bear Bryant’s last quarterback. Lewis is no stranger to Conecuh County. During the past year, Lewis has made a number of presentations to the Conecuh County Commission regarding financial bonds held by the county.

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This past Saturday wrapped up the 12th week of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em Contest, and after Saturday’s slate of games, Johnny Davis found himself in sole possession of the No. 1 spot. Aaron Albritton and Jacob Ramer were tied for second place. Hunter Norris was in fourth place.

Sharon Peacock was in the No. 5 spot, and Mark Peacock was in sixth place. Jeremy Matheny was in seventh place, and Travis Presley was in eighth place. David Price and I were tied for ninth place. Justin Jensen was in 11th place.

This year’s contest is winding down. We’ve got two more weeks left to go, so we’re getting down to the short rows. Who will win this year’s “Mr. Football” title? Only time will tell.

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Here are my SEC football picks for this coming week’s slate of games. I like LSU over Arkansas, Vanderbilt over Wake Forest, Georgia over Georgia Tech, Tennessee over Kentucky, Florida over Florida State, Alabama over Auburn, Ole Miss over Mississippi State, Clemson over South Carolina and Texas A&M over Missouri.

Last week: 10-1. So far this season: 83-20.