The 1969 Bearcats football team was one of the best in Forest High School history and they will have another opportunity for recognition and to reminisce their gridiron success later this month.
The 1969 team will be honored during the annual Scott County Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony set for 5 p.m. on April 25 at the Livingston Performing Arts Center at Roosevelt State Park in Morton. Collectively, the team will join the Class of 2026 of 14 individual honorees receiving recognition for their achievement.
The 1969 Bearcats finished their season 10-0-1 and the only blemish was a 6-6 tie with Warren Central in the season opener. They brought Forest the first of two consecutive Little Dixie Conference Championships, which remain a source of pride almost 57 years later.
Some of the players and most of the coaches are gone and the Little Dixie Conference passed into history two generations ago. However, some players have kept memories of that storied season alive by a regular stroll down memory lane. Having dubbed themselves “The Lunch Bunch,” seven 1969 FHS seniors meet monthly for lunch for reminiscing. They include Freddie Bagley (QB), Bill Blossom (center), Ralph Brown and Steve Clark (backs), Drew Hunt (tackle), Jimmy May (guard), Bill Pace (tight end), along with former Bearcat mascot Shot Risher.
The lunch tradition began when Clark, the group’s “social chairman,” and Risher took Brown to lunch for his birthday on September 18, 2020, and the remaining four regular members joined later. Other teammates have attended, including Malon Reid, who did not play in 1969, but attended every practice and every game. Some players from earlier Bearcat teams also occasionally attend the lunches.
Success for the 1969 Bearcats was not certain. Head Coach Ken Bramlett’s 1968 squad finished 8-3, including a Crystal Bowl win. A preseason coaches’ poll projected the Bearcats to win the Northern Division of the conference. Big pieces from the 1968 team — among them 1,000-yard rusher Ronny Jones and defensive leader Henry Risher — graduated and signed scholarships with Mississippi State.
No one admitted to predicting a championship season in 1969, although the seniors certainly believed they could be something special. Most of them had played football together since the seventh grade. Jimmy May said junior high Coach Ken Gordon taught that group to believe in themselves and that belief carried over to high school. The seniors believed they had a chance to be really good when preseason practice began.
Coach Bramlett and assistant coaches Warren Crain and Gary Risher felt the same way, according to Crain, the only surviving member of the staff. Crain recalls, “They had a good year when they were juniors, all of them were coming back. They knew the drill and already had our offense and defense down.”
Preseason practice, also known as August when all the running and hitting happened, was dreaded largely because of the heat and humidity. Hunt remembers many of the players worked outside summer jobs like hauling hay specifically to help prepare them for August. But August 1969 was worse than most.
Pace’s description is pointed: August practice in 1969 was “hot, humid, and brutal.” Bagley recalls the humidity left over from Hurricane Camille was “almost unbearable.” Clark can still recite the onerous practice schedule — be dressed and on the field by 7 a.m.; 2 ½ hours of practice; go home and rest until 1:30 p.m.; back at the gym to watch game films from the previous year; back on the field at 2:30 or 3 for another 2 ½ hours of practice; then run wind sprints. Hydration was not deemed as important in 1969 as it is today, and persistent “cotton mouth” was a common condition after a just few minutes of practice.
Clark said “Bramlett ran practice like a drill sergeant.” Hunt said Bramlett was “strict but fair.” May said “we knew he (Bramlett) was in charge and that we had to answer to him if we messed up on or off the field.” Bagley describes Bramlett as the CEO who delegated assignments, but the players “knew who the ‘head man’ was.” While Clark said, “we had no trick plays other than an occasional split end around; Bramlett didn’t believe in trick plays.” Bagley said he came to realize “how sophisticated our offense was in terms of formations: slot, wing-T, power I, two tight ends, wishbone, double slot, and pro.” Bramlett believed in hard-nosed football.
When asked to identify the leaders of that team, Coach Crain and some members of the Lunch Bunch cover the waterfront, naming individually all the members of the Lunch Bunch plus others like seniors Richard Austin and John David Calhoun, who have died. Other Lunch Bunchers nominate “the whole senior class.”
Lunch Bunchers’ opinions of which games stand out to them are near-unanimous. The Warren Central game was the toughest, and the championship game against Magee the most memorable. The Lunch Bunchers said a turning point in the Warren Central game was when defensive leader Calhoun was injured and had to leave the game. Crain admits that “Warren Central was very prepared for us and caught us off guard” with what Bagley recalls was a gap-8 defense that made blocking tough. Crain credits defensive back and Lunch Bunchers member Ralph Brown with an interception that “saved us” and kept the game at a 6-6 tie.
The Bearcats dominated with 10 straight wins after the tie, outscoring those opponents 373-71. The Bearcats’ smallest margin of victory during that stretch, 17 points; and the most points allowed in a game, 14, with four shutouts.
The championship game was close at first, but the Bearcats wore Magee down and won 46-13. While the Lunch Bunchers remember the joy of the on-field post-game celebration, Bagley recalls, rather than a lot of yelling and celebrating, “there was quiet on the bus going home. We realized we had attained our goal, and it was over. We realized it was the journey, the hardships, and the brotherhood of the players that were more important than the actual victory.”
Years later, after leaving coaching and while working as a district manager for a pharmaceutical company, Crain often visited clients and potential clients. He happened to call on a doctor in Magee who opposed Forest in that 1969 championship game. Crain said the doctor confessed “the Magee team kind of ignored us. Big mistake. We kicked their butts, and the doctor admitted it.”
Crain also noted that the 1969 team considered his wife, Susan, their lucky charm. The team wanted her to attend the championship game, but she was pregnant and didn’t need to travel. The team wanted to rent an ambulance to get Susan to the game, but Dr. Bill Austin said “No.” Thankfully, Susan’s absence had no adverse effect on the Bearcats that night.
Memories remain alive for the Lunch Bunch. The August training and the championship season that followed created a fellowship and a bond that survived time and distance. They were the elders and the core leadership of a team that achieved a historic first for their school. The Lunch Bunch evolved to keep those memories alive and observe and renew the special brotherhood that began on a hot August morning in 1969.
“The coaches walked out of the field house on a humid early morning on August 10, 1969, with the task of molding 46 boys into Little Dixie competitors. They structured the game plan; we listened, learned, and repeated that plan until we became a well-polished machine. What the coaches didn’t know is the legacy of brotherhood they left among us all,” Pace said. “We won the Little Dixie championship and in addition have succeeded in life in our own ways due to those three coaches who instilled in all of us principles, hard work, and being able to depend on each other.”
Hall of Fame tickets are $10 per person and are available at Community Bank and Bank of Forest. The Morton ticket location is Bank of Commerce and tickets are available in Lake at the Scott County Broadcasting Network office on Highway 80. Tickets can also be purchased at the door.
More information is also available on the website: scottcountysportshalloffame.org.
Editor’s Note: This story was written in part based on information received by the writer. The 1969 Bearcat football team included more players than those included here, and the limited length is not meant to minimize other team members’ contributions.
