Evergreen beat Frisco City in epic football showdown 67 years ago

I was looking through my local history notes earlier this week and saw that today, Oct. 8, marks the 67th anniversary of one of the biggest football games ever play in Evergreen – the 1948 showdown between undefeated Evergreen High School and the Frisco City Whippets.

This much-anticipated game was played before an estimated crowd of 1,100 fans at Brooks Memorial Stadium, and Evergreen, under third-year coach Wendell Hart, ended up winning, 33-6. John Greel Ralls and quarterback John Law Robinson scored two touchdowns each, and Billy Mudge Lee also added a touchdown.

Other outstanding Evergreen players in that game included Dudley Bartlett, Dickey Bozeman, Thomas Coker, Shelton Craig, Jack Cunningham, Sammy Hanks, Edward Hooks, Bruce Johnson, Jimmy Ryan, Dean Shaver, Nick Stallworth and Pete White.

Frisco City’s only points came when halfback John McGinty scored on a two-yard run and those were the first points scored on Evergreen’s defense up to that point in the season. In the weeks leading up to this game, Evergreen had shut out Repton, McKenzie and Greenville and later in the year they shut out W.S. Neal and Monroe County High School.

Evergreen finished the season with a 6-3 overall record, their losses coming on the road against UMS in Mobile and T.R. Miller in Brewton and at home against Loretto High School, which is now known as Montgomery Catholic.

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The fifth weekend of the college football season is now in the history books, and only three SEC teams made it out of the weekend with unbeaten records. Florida and Texas A&M are 5-0, and LSU is 4-0. Georgia and Ole Miss suffered their first losses of the season on Saturday.

This weekend’s slate of games features four head-to-head SEC games this week. Two SEC teams, Ole Miss and Mississippi State, will play non-conference opponents. Four teams – Auburn, Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Texas A&M – have the weekend off.

With that said, here are my predictions for this Saturday’s slate of games. I like Alabama over Arkansas, Florida over Missouri, Georgia over Tennessee, LSU over South Carolina, Ole Miss over New Mexico State and Mississippi State over Troy.

Last week: 6-3. So far this season: 42-10.

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This past weekend also marked the fifth weekend of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em Contest. Sharon Peacock remained in first place for the second week in a row, and Ricky Taylor held down the No. 2 spot in the standings for the second straight week. Deagan Dailey moved into third place from fifth place.

Mike Daily and Ricky Powell were tied for fourth place. Sam Rowell dropped from fifth place to sixth place. Hunter Norris moved up to seventh place from ninth place.

Jonathan Tuberville dropped from fourth place to eight place. I remained in ninth place, and Casey Grant dropped from fifth place into tenth place.

If you’re one of the contestants in the contest and didn’t do well over the weekend, don’t sweat it. We’ve got eight weeks to go before the end of the season, and the Top 10 will change a lot over the course of the next two months.