Enterprise Wildcats seek 248th win in last game at Bates

“Just the facts ma’am.”
It was 1956, fall to be exact, and there was a lot of excitement in town as the new Enterprise High School and football stadium on East Watts were grandly opened.
At nearby Hillcrest Elementary School, and across the railroad tracks at City Elementary and Carroll Street Elementary, members of what the world would embrace as the EHS graduating class of 1968 entered first grade.

Elvis was big and getting bigger in ‘56. “Dragnet,” from whence came the opening quote above, “Gunsmoke,” and “Steve Donovan, Western Marshall,” were among the growing number of programs broadcast on the wonder of the world, television, in the days when receiving two channels on the House of Adams Motorola set was magical, cutting-edge technology.

“Miss Jean” Farris was on radio station WIRB weekday mornings at 7:15 with her “Local News While It’s News” program, and the Enterprise Ledger came out on Thursdays.

There was no Boll Weevil Circle in Enterprise in 1956; there was little to bypass here in the days when the Boll Weevil Monument was in its 30s.

But boy did Enterprise have a football team that fall!

Related:

Former Enterprise Wildcats Carlos Robinson and Harrell Thompson, as well as former "Big Blue" band member Ricky Adams sit down on the old concrete steps to share their memories of times in "the hole," and the people who contributed to the rich history in R.L. Bates Memorial Stadium.

To view our multi-part video interview with them, please visit our video page or see them on our youtube channel at youtube.com/enterpriseledger.

After the worst period in team history, 1947-54, when the Wildcats were 23-45-11 with only one winning season, 1948, in eight, the worm turned quickly after bottoming out a second time.

The 1950 team, Russell Taylor’s last at then-Coffee County High, and the 1953 outfit, Herbert Hawkins’s first here, were winless, and the 1954 team was 2-5-3.

The 1955 squad had gone 8-2 in the final season in Peanut Stadium, but in 1956, Hawkins and the Wildcats ushered in what would truly become a golden era of football played in what is still one of the finest high school stadiums anywhere.

In fact, the ‘56 team set the bar so high no Wildcat team since has gone through an entire season unbeaten and untied.

In 1956, the Cats downed Ozark, 20-12, on opening night of then-Enterprise Municipal Stadium, and went on to defeat Ashford, Geneva, Opp, and Troy at home.

The ‘57 team opened on the road by defeating Ozark, then in its first year in its new school, Carroll High, and a new ball yard, Mathews Stadium. Those Cats won all their home games in the newly-re-named home the world came to know as R.L. Bates Memorial Stadium, but lost, 14-6, in Troy in the season’s ninth week.

Then came the abysmal 1958 campaign that began with Enterprise’s first loss in Bates Memorial, a 19-7 setback to Carroll High in what would prove to be the Eagles only victory in 23 games played in the Enterprise stadium.

Morris Higginbotham, who’d first come to Enterprise as a Class D professional baseball player almost a decade earlier, replaced Hawkins in 1959, and molded what had been a 3-6-1 outfit the season before into a 9-1 team.

In the Higginbotham era, 1959-61, Enterprise had 15 victories, one loss and one tie in Bates Memorial.

The Cats continued their winning ways both on the road and at home after Paul Terry replaced Higginbotham in 1962. In fact, Enterprise wouldn’t lose its 10th home game until the third home game of the 1967 season, when the Dothan Tigers beat th Cats, 14-7.

The 20th loss was the 16-0 experience against Dothan in the 1975 season-finale. The 30th was the 21-7 loss to Northview in 1986.

The 40th loss came in the second round of the 1990 playoffs, 14-0, against Murphy, and the 50th was the 1996 second-round playoff, 17-7, loss to Jeff Davis.

The 60th was a another 17-7 loss, this one to Central/Phenix City in the second game in 2001, and the 70th was the 21-13 loss to Opelika last year.
For the record, the 1956, ‘57, ‘59, ‘63, ‘66, ‘78, ‘80-82, ‘92, 2004-05 teams were undefeated and untied at home.

All told, entering this week, Enterprise is 247-72-2 in Bates Memorial, and is looking to bring down the curtain on the stadium’s 54 years with a win against Jeff Davis, a team Enterprise trails all-time, 3-9, and a team responsible for four of the home-loss total.

Close losses to Sidney Lanier in 1963-64 convinced us all the Cats could take care of the big city slickers…given proper officiating.

But J.D. came down here looking for all the world more like the Green Bay Packers than a new high school, beat us, 9-6.

Enterprise lost to Jeff Davis again, and again, and again from 1969-71. Our first win against the Vols came in 1979.

But the Cats did beat a Montgomery school, Carver, in 1974, in Bill Bacon’s first year here, and hold a 17-1 record against the Wolverines. Enterprise is 14-6 against Lanier, and 7-6 against Robert E. Lee, the other 6A Montgomery schools.

Included in the 3-9 record against the Vols is that painful 17-7 loss in the second round of the 1996 playoffs.

Enterprise was ahead, 7-0, late in the first half, and appeared to have scored a second touchdown when Jimmy McClain rambled for a score off a fake punt, a ruse Bacon had carefully detailed to the officials prior to the game.

However, the TD was called back due to an “inadvertent whistle” that negated the score…but did produce a feeble apology from game officials, for what that was worth. J.D. got the win and went on to claim the state championship.

When former Vols head coach Charles Lee’s commercial for Jackson Hospital airs on WSFA, in the background is the 1996 state championship trophy that should’ve been ours.
Speaking of state championships, the aforementioned ‘79 Wildcats, the state champions, defeated the Volunteers in Montgomery’s Cramton Bowl, 9-7, in the semi-finals in one of that season’s most memorable games.

The win featured an interception returned for a touchdown by Jeff Bagley, and an Eddie Fortner field goal.

That was the first win against J.D. The second was a 27-20 EHS victory in the second playoff round for the other EHS state champions, the 1982 team that went 13-0-1.
The third victory was last year’s 34-14 decision in Bates Memorial against the 0-10 Vols.

Now comes tonight’s clash that brings the 1-8 Vols to Bates Memorial for the last time to face the 6-3 Cats in a game with playoff implications despite the fact the teams aren’t in the same region.

“Jeff Davis will be one of the more physical teams we’ve faced,” said EHS coach Kevin Collins, the seventh head Wildcat coach since 1956; Buck Hanson was interim head coach for the final two games of the 2004 season.

“They have big linemen on both sides of the ball and they have some big skill-position players…200-pound wide receivers,” Collins said. “They’re coming out of their region very much like us in that it’s not so much that they’ve lost games as it is who it is that’s beaten them.

“They’ve lost to Prattville, Stanhope Elmore, Benjamin Russell, Robert E. Lee and Wetumpka and beaten Lanier in their region. They also lost to Carver, Mosley and Auburn.
“They’ve certainly had a tough schedule, but so have we. And I think it says a lot for our guys to have gone on the road five times and won four of those games. It hasn’t been an easy season.”
Collins said previous losses and wins don’t mean anything tonight.

“All that matters is how you do on the night you play a certain team,” he said. “You can’t compare how the two did against common opponents and say one team is better than the other. Every game is different and must be played that way.”

Tonight’s game is set for a 7 p.m. kickoff.

All former Wildcats, coaches, cheerleaders, band members and longtime fans are encouraged to arrive early for the final scheduled, regular-season home game. The 2010 Cats will open in their new stadium next season.

To avoid ticket lines tonight, buy your tickets at Bryars-Warren.

Note: “Excuse me, Carl, that’s Mo Rell, Mo Rell Jerkins from Enterprise,” were the words of the late Ralph “Shug” Jordan on “The Auburn Football Review” when Marrell Jerkins, EHS class of 1966 was an AU linebacker and Jordan was his head coach Jerkins is now the president and CEO of Great Dane Petroleum Contractors, Inc., will be the speaker at today’s noon meeting of the Enterprise Quarterback Club.

With more than 30 years of construction and operational experience within the gasoline retailing industry, Jerkins is considered a leading expert in various aspects of the retail petroleum business. He currently holds contractor’s licenses in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, and is responsible for all phases of ground-up construction for clients, which include Exxon/Mobil Oil, Chevron/Texaco Oil Co., Shell Oil, Hess, BP/Amoco and Pro-Energy. He is an owner and operator of a number of major branded retail gasoline stations and convenience store facilities in Florida.