Veteran sportswriter seeks info about two Conecuh County football games

Veteran Mobile-area sportswriter Robert Ladnier paid a nice visit to The Courant office on Wednesday of last week and some of you in the reading audience may be able to help him with some sports-related research he’s doing.

Ladnier, who covered sports for The Mobile Press-Register and other newspapers for almost 30 years, is seeking information about two games that Conecuh County High School played in the late 70s. Ladnier, a native of Bayou La Batre, attended Mobile’s Independent Methodist School, and has fond memories of two games IMS played against CCHS in 1978 and 1979. He is seeking additional information about both of those games for a football history research project he’s working on.

IMS began playing varsity football in 1971 and was one of about 10 schools in the Mobile Independent Conference. In 1975, IMS joined schools like Sparta Academy in what was then called the Alabama Private School Association (APSA) and would later become known as the Alabama Independent School Association (AISA). In 1978, IMS had grown to include about 850 students and began competing in the Alabama Christian Athletic Conference.

On Oct. 6, 1978, under head coach Ken McWilliams, IMS traveled to M.C. Thomasson Stadium in Castleberry to play their first ever game against a public school in football. This was a big night for CCHS because it was their homecoming game and the school planned to honor its 1959 and 1969 graduates.

From what Ladnier recalls, the Blue Devil’s “rammed the football down our throats” on their first possession, and “we had not experienced that before.”

IMS regained its composure and late in the first half, IMS senior Guy Doss scored on a long run that got IMS back into the game. IMS took the lead for good in the second half and won, 26-19.

“Never the less, it was a close, well-fought contest,” Ladnier said.

CCHS was scheduled to play IMS in Mobile in 1979, but on Sept. 12, 1979 Hurricane Frederic struck the Gulf Coast and knocked down all the light poles except one at IMS’s stadium. For that reason, IMS had to return to Castleberry on Oct. 12, 1979 for their rematch against the Blue Devils. IMS won, 27-0.

Ladnier played linebacker, and his older brother, Woodie Ladnier, played at running back in that game. Woodie rushed for over 100 yards, but didn’t score. His two longest runs of the night, which would have been touchdowns, got called back because of clipping and holding penalties. If not for those penalties, he would have had over 250 yards rushing that night, Robert said.

The Courant ran stories about both of those CCHS-IMS games, but those stories included few details about the games. In the end, Ladnier is seeking any information that anyone has about either of those games, especially scoring details, statistics and game highlights. If any of you out there have any details about either of those games, please contact me at The Courant, so that I can pass it along to Ladnier. You can reach me by phone at 578-1492, by fax at 578-1496 or by e-mail at courantsports@earthlink.net. You can reach me by mail by writing The Evergreen Courant, ATTN: Lee Peacock, P.O. Box 440, Evergreen, AL 36401.