The Mississippi chapter of the NAACP has developed a congressional redistricting plan that it hopes the Legislature will adopt in the upcoming 2022 session.
The recently unveiled plan moves all of Hinds County and a small portion of southern Madison County into the majority-Black 2nd Congressional District. Those areas currently are in the 3rd District.
The plan makes other minor changes in other parts of the state to ensure equal population representation among the four congressional districts.
“This map meets the criteria for the congressional districts according to Section II of the (U.S) Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States Constitution and it complies with all state laws,” said Carroll Rhodes of Hazlehurst, attorney for the Mississippi NAACP. The NAACP is the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.
The NAACP proposed map moves all of Hinds County and parts of Madison County into the 2nd congressional district.
During the 2022 legislative session, which begins in January, the Legislature will attempt to redraw the four congressional seats and the 174 state legislative seats to match population shifts found by the 2020 U.S. Census.
Legislators plan to deal with congressional redistricting early in the session since all four U.S. House seat elections will be held later in 2022. The elections for the state legislative seats are not scheduled until 2023.
On Dec. 15, the joint House and Senate redistricting committee will meet with the intent of adopting a congressional plan to present to the full Legislature in the 2022 season.
Corey Wiggins, the executive director of the state chapter of the NAACP, is asking the committee to consider the NAACP proposal.
In a letter, Wiggins told the committee the goal of the NAACP plan is to not “disproportionately affect marginalized communities” in a negative way.
He said the NAACP plan “ensures all Mississippi voters are represented in the voting process, gives special consideration to compactness of congressional districts and meets all federal and state laws.”
The plan, Rhodes said, splits fewer counties, municipalities and precincts than the current map does. The ideal population is 740,320 people in each district. Rhodes said the NAACP plan has two districts that are one person each below the ideal size and one district that is one person above the ideal size. The other district is the exact ideal size based on the 2020 Census data.
The law calls for the districts to be as close “as practicable” to equal in population.
Wiggins said the NAACP is submitting a plan early in hopes of avoiding litigation. The Legislature has been unable to complete congressional redistricting efforts after the previous two censuses and it was left to the federal courts to draw the districts.
Both Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, the Senate chair of the redistricting committee, and Jim Beckett, R-Bruce, the House chair, have said they hope to avoid litigation and have a plan approved by the Legislature.
The biggest chore facing the Legislature in drawing the congressional districts is the loss of more than 65,000 people in the 2nd District. The Legislature will have to address the population loss and at the same time, based on federal laws, maintain a Black majority district.
Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who represents the 2nd District, has advocated moving all of Hinds from the 3rd District, represented by Republican Michael Guest of Rankin County, to his district to help offset the population loss.
The NAACP plan also proposes moving all of Hinds into Thompson’s district.
Under the NAACP plan, the 2nd District would have a Black voting age population of 62.1% compared to 64.8% under the current map. The 3rd District would have, as it does now, the second highest African American population at a little more than 35%.
To meet equal representation goals, the NAACP plan also would:
Move Winston and all of Oktibbeha County to the 3rd District from the 1st.
Move all of Marion and Clarke counties and a tiny portion of Jones from the 4th to the 3rd.
Wiggins said the NAACP is working to develop a proposal for the 174 legislative seats.
On Monday, the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) reported the first confirmed case of the COVID-19 omicron variant in the state. The case was identified in a fully vaccinated individual who recently traveled to New York. The individual has not been hospitalized.
“We were prepared for the appearance of this variant in Mississippi, and we need to remember that Delta is still a very active variant of COVID-19 currently in the state, as well,” said MSDH State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs in a press release.
Mississippi is the 17th state in the U.S. to report the presence of omicron. Infections from the variant have been identified in dozens of countries on every continent except Antarctica.
The first U.S. omicron case was identified on Nov. 29 in San Francisco in a person who had recently returned from South Africa, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Public health experts have urged caution over panic when reacting to the emergence of omicron. Scientists expect to learn much more in the coming weeks about the new variant. At the moment, much is still unknown about the severity of illness caused by the variant and how it interacts with currently available treatments and vaccines. Dobbs said the best thing people can do right now to protect themselves is to get vaccinated and a receive a booster dose if eligible.
“Vaccines remain the best public health measure to protect people from COVID-19, slow the transmission rate, and reduce the likelihood of new variants emerging. COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and death,” he said.
First identified in Botswana and South Africa, omicron has been called a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization. The organization has warned that it poses a great danger to the global recovery from the pandemic, despite the current lack of data on the variant.
Any person that wishes to schedule a vaccination or booster appointment in Mississippi can online at covidvaccine.umc.edu, or by calling MSDH’s COVID-19 hotline at 866-498-4948.
As billions of dollars flow into the state of Mississippi from federal relief funds, some state leaders point to what’s happening in Prentiss County as a playbook.
Long before the start of the pandemic, the Prentiss County Electric Power Association (EPA) was working to increase broadband, or high-speed internet, access in their area. They lobbied the state Legislature to pass the Mississippi Broadband Enabling Act in January of 2019, which gave them the statutory ability to provide broadband services. Construction took about a year, and in July 2020 they began installing fiber internet in customers’ homes.
“The speed at which they have gotten it done is just unheard of,” said Brandon Presley, northern district public service commissioner. “Every single home in Prentiss County can now get high-speed internet service. That would have truly been thought impossible just two years ago.”
Internet usage has become nearly ubiquitous, with 93% of American adults regularly using the internet in 2021 according to the Pew Research Center. But some populations still struggle to consistently access the resource; 72% of rural individuals have access to broadband, and 57% of low-income individuals have access. The pandemic has put into stark relief how essential internet access is to participation in society, leading to an increased investment by lawmakers to expand access.
In July 2020, electric cooperatives across the state received Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding to increase broadband access for communities that had no other service available. For the Prentiss County EPA, that meant $5 million to serve what Ronny Rowland, general manager of the Prentiss County EPA, calls the “CARES area” — rural areas that larger companies wouldn’t service because of the high cost.
“We’re a not-for-profit, we borrowed the money to build out to them and the CARES money just came in to help us pay our loans back quicker,” Rowland said. “We were going to build out to them anyway because they’re our electric members and they own the co-op system.”
Currently, 56% of the co-op’s electric customers are signed up for the fiber internet, which jumps to 76% in some of the areas covered by the CARES Act funding.
Rowland started this project to help north Mississippi stay economically competitive and to improve the quality of life in the region, but said the pandemic put a particular focus on the need for high-speed internet access.
Jeff Palmer, the superintendent of Prentiss County Schools, said that the improved internet access through the EPA’s program helped students reach the virtual classroom and stay engaged with their education.
“We went from doing paper and pencil packets when it all started to having most of our students fully online by the start of school last year,” Palmer said.
Prentiss County Schools used the $600,000 in education-targeted CARES broadband funds they received to help students who were not on the EPA’s fiber internet. They created hotspot school busses that were strategically parked around the county and expanded the wifi capacity at the schools so people could access it from the parking lot.
Of the $50 million that was earmarked for schools, 79% was spent on education broadband projects, while 21% went unspent and was returned to the state unemployment fund. The Mississippi Department of Education said that the nearly $40 million was spent primarily on hotspots, network infrastructure, and laying fiber optic cable, with some larger projects to build cell towers.
Six school districts rejected the funding: Amite County Public School District, Midtown Public Charter School, the Mississippi School for the Blind and Deaf, Smith County School District, Water Valley School District, and Winona Montgomery Consolidated School District. Of those, two that Mississippi Today spoke with cited issues with the quick funding deadlines and restrictions on what could be purchased.
“A hotspot won’t do you any good if you don’t have cell service,” said Nick Hillman, Superintendent of the Smith County School District.
Presley said he was not aware of any co-ops that had not met the spending deadline, which was similar for both programs.
“This is a wonderful playbook for the hundreds of millions of dollars that are coming down now in terms of both the infrastructure bill and the American Rescue Plan,” said Presley. “This program showed that those dollars can be spent effectively and have a great impact.”
Mississippi Today journalists Julia James and Will Stribling join editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau to discuss how Mississippi was at the center of a renewed national debate about abortion access and the U.S. Supreme Court’s deliberations about Roe v. Wade.
It apparently never gets old for Coach Lance Mancuso of Jefferson Davis County, whose Jaguars won his ninth state championship Friday in the first game of the two-day, six-game MHSAA State High School Football Championships at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg .
Story by Rick Cleveland, photos by Keith Warren
Let’s take a trip through the thrills, chills and spills of State Championship Weekend at The Rock in Hattiesburg, where the best of Mississippi high school football was on display.
Championship dreams were both lived and dashed. Tears of both joy and despair were shed. Six state champions were crowned. Six gold ball trophies were awarded — and earned. Every player and coach received a medal — and memories for life.
We’ll go in the order the games were played and begin with the Jefferson Davis County Jaguars’ 42-10 Class 3A championship victory over Amory. It was Jaguars coach Lance Mancuso’s record ninth straight state championship and the Jags’ third in five years. Most of Mancuso’s previous titles were won at Bassfield, which was consolidated with nearby Prentiss, to form the new high school five years ago.
Three things haven’t changed with the new school. One, they still run the old, Wing-T offense. Two, they still run exceedingly fast. Three, they still have players named Booth. Demario Booth Jr. ran for 205 yards and three touchdowns to lead the way Friday.
“I’d like to take credit, but it’s really all about these kids,” Mancuso said, with grandchildren tugging at his pants legs. “I’ve been lucky enough to be the head coach of nine amazing football teams, and this group this year was no different. It’s just a collection of great kids and great players who deserve everything they’ve achieved.
“I don’t know why the good Lord has blessed me so.”
Bay Springs quarterback/linebacker Anthony Newell (2) is listed at 5 feet, 7 inches and 145 pounds. He may not be that tall, but he guided the Bulldogs’ offense and spearheaded the defense in Bay Springs’ 32-12 victory over previously unbeaten Hollandale Simmons.
Class 1A, the division for Mississippi’s smallest football-playing schools, often produces the best championship games. It produced a doozy Friday afternoon when Bay Springs fired back from a 12-8 halftime deficit to defeat previously unbeaten Hollandale Simmons 32-12 with one of the smallest players on either team leading the way.
In truth, neither Bay Springs, not Simmons, looked like your typical Class 1A team. Their rosters were bigger, and so were their players. But Anthony Newell, who played quarterback and linebacker, showed there is still room in 1A football for a smaller guy with a huge heart. The mite-sized Newell played offense and defense and special teams for the Bulldogs, who won the first state championship in school history.
Newell completed four of six passes and led the ‘Dogs with 10 tackles. More importantly, he handed or pitched the ball 20 times to Anthony Ross, who rambled for 220 yards and two touchdowns and MVP honors.
Bay Springs has been in the playoffs countless times, been to the championship three times, but had never won one. “This championship is for all those teams that came close to doing this in the past,” said Bay Springs coach Dan Brady.
The biggest crowd – estimates ranged from 11 to 13 thousand –showed for the Class 6A showdown between Madison Central and Brandon. The student sections showed up in force, as shown by these Brandon Bulldogs fans.
Brandon had won nine straight games. Madison Central had won seven straight. Something had to give in the Friday night battle of Class 6A titans. Finally, in the fourth quarter of a back-forth-struggle, Madison Central took advantage of a Brandon fumble and clinched a 24-17 victory for its first state championship in 22 years and only its second in school history. The game was an instant classic.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Madison Central coach Toby Collums said. “More than anything I’m proud for these kids for finding a way to win a state championship, especially against a group that’s as good and as well-coached as Brandon.”
Jaguars junior quarterback Jake Norris, who just three weeks ago was a reserve tight end, claimed MVP honors with a 178-yard performance that included a 79-yard touchdown pass and then the winning two-yard, TD run in the fourth quarter.
Norris became the Jags’ quarterback when normal starter Vic Sutton suffered a torn ACL two weeks ago. Asked if he would have believed he would be the state championship MVP two weeks ago, Norris responded, “Not in a million years. I had one touchdown all season at tight end. This is crazy … and awesome.
Hunter Mabry (6) caught three touchdown passes for Senatobia Saturday morning in the 4A championship, but it wasn’t enough for the Warriors as Columbia prevailed 22-21 in the closest of the six state championship games.
Senatobia’s Hunter Mabry caught three touchdown passes in the 4A championship game. And he lost. Columbia won its first state title in 39 years, prevailing 22-21 when Senatobia missed a short field goal attempt in the final seconds.
Columbia’s 6-foot-4-inch, 340-pound man child Jaheim Oatis, the state’s most coveted recruit (committed to Alabama), was on display, but his much smaller Wildcat teammate Kentrell Jackson made by far the game’s biggest play late in the third quarter with Senatobia leading the game 21-14 and seemingly driving for another touchdown.
Jackson, a 165-pound wide receiver and defensive back, had other ideas. He stripped the ball away from a Senatobia runner, broke three or four tackles, then raced 81 yards for a touchdown, zigging and zagging all the way down the field.
Southern Miss coach Will Hall, watching from the end zone, exclaimed, “Wow, that’s the greatest play I’ve ever seen! That kid’s last name must be Payton!”
No, it was Jackson. “It was just going through my mind I had to make a play,” Jackson would say afterward. “Finally, I made it happen.”
Yes, and then Columbia went for two with Oatis, who primarily plays defense, lining up at left tackle. Naturally, running back Omar Johnson followed Oatis’s push into the end zone for the winning two-point conversion.
Scott Central’s Javieon Butler (6) catches one of his two touchdowns passes from Quez Goss, who threw six CDs in all during the Rebels’ record-setting 2A state championship victory over Leflore County Saturday afternoon.
NFL legend Vince Lombardi once said, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can attain excellence.”
The Scott Central Rebels found both this season. Scott Central set the MHSAA championships scoring record in a 72-24 victory over Leflore County to cap a perfect 15-0 season. The Rebels were the lone public school football team in Mississippi this season to finish the season undefeated.
Quez Goss, the team’s 15-year-old sophomore quarterback, might not have been perfect, but he was as close as it gets. He ran for 103 yards and two touchdowns. He threw for 350 yards and six touchdowns. That’s eight touchdowns total, but he was not perfect. Seven of his 24 passes fell incomplete.
Listen: Scott Central won its five playoff games by scores of 54-8, 54-25, 60-14, 60-14 again, and 72-24. That was after a regular season during which the Rebels averaged over 40 points per game.
Said Leflore County coach Eric House: “Scott Central was everything they were advertised to be. They are a great football team. They have the best receivers we’ve seen all year, and that quarterback is a special, special player.”
Picayune coach Cody Stogner (left) is congratulated by former Picayune coach and Maroon Tide legend Dodd Lee after Picayune stunned West Point 40-21 for the State 5A championship Saturday night.
As the final seconds ticked down in Picayune’s 40-21 State 5A Championship victory over West Point, former Maroon Tide coach Dodd Lee found his successor Cody Stogner on the sidelines. They shared a long, obviously meaningful embrace.
“That man has had the biggest influence of anyone in my life outside my father,” Stogner would later say. “He coached me, he hired me as a coach and gave me a chance. He helped me replace him here as the coach. It’s just a very special moment.”
To win the title, Picayune had to beat the state’s most successful football program, 11-time state champ West Point and its ultra-successful coach Chris Chambless. Afterward, Stogner paid tribute to Chambless and West Point. He said his goal at Picayune has been to emulate in south Mississippi what Chambless has achieved in the Golden Triangle.
“… I don’t know how you wouldn’t want to mirror what those guys have been doing year in and year out. They show up every game and play it the right way. That’s why I’m so proud of my guys and what they have accomplished.”
As Dodd’s teams once did, Stogner’s Maroon Tide runs the somewhat old-fashioned Wing-T offense. They run it, run it, and then run it some more. They ran it for 393 of their 414 yards of total offense. Indeed, they threw the ball only three times all night.
Dante Dowdell ran it for 148 yards and two touchdowns. Chris Davis ran it for 139 yards and two more scores. Darnell Smith chipped in 88 yards and another TD.
In many ways, Picayune did mirror West Point’s season-after-season formula for success. That is, they blocked, tackled and executed to perfection — or at least something mighty close.
In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with AARP Mississippi State Director Kimberly L. Campbell. She is responsible for leading and directing AARP’s work in advocacy, community engagement, and communications to serve the 285,000 AARP members in Mississippi.
Previously, she served in the House of Representatives (House District 72) from 2008 to 2016 and clerked for two justices on the Mississippi Supreme Court.
A mom of four girls, Campbell talks about work-life balance, her career, Mississippi and family. It’s an inspiring conversation.
Mississippi residents would enjoy a significant financial boost if they only had a $1 for every time Gov. Tate Reeves advocated eliminating the personal income tax so that the state could compete with Texas, Florida and Tennessee.
“We compete with them every single day for new jobs, and in every instance we are at a disadvantage because they don’t have an income tax and we do,” Reeves said recently.
Reeves wants to eliminate the Mississippi personal income tax within five years.
There are a multitude of ways to compare Mississippi to those three Southern no-income tax states and perhaps to the nation as a whole. And it is no secret that Mississippi lags in comparison to those three states and the entire nation when it comes to wages, health care outcomes and other factors. For instance, Mississippi is last in per capita income and mean household income. Florida, Texas and Tennessee are not in the top 10 in those categories.
The top states in terms of per capita income, such as California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, have a significant tax on income.
Surprisingly, Mississippi outpaces many of those states, the nation, and — gulp — those three no-income tax states in personal income growth, adjusted for inflation, for the calendar year 2020.
In 2020, the nation’s personal income grew by a healthy 5.28% while Mississippi’s grew at an even healthier 6.16%. On the other hand, Florida’s personal income grew by 4.89% while Texas increased by 3.58% and Tennessee grew by 3.77%.
Of the nine states without an income tax, only two — Washington and South Dakota — grew faster in personal income than did Mississippi and the United States.
Granted, 2020 was an anomaly in many ways thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive influx of federal funds that fueled growth, especially in a poor state like Mississippi where those funds had a greater impact. A study by Pew, a national non-profit foundation that provides research on public policy issues, shows that for many years dating back to 2007, Mississippi’s growth in personal income was fairly anemic — dismal for many of those years. And yes, Texas, which has been a booming economic engine for many years, enjoyed much stronger growth in personal income, according to the Pew study. But so did other states that have an income tax, an income tax much bigger than Mississippi such as California, New York and others.
Numerous methods of measuring economic vitality exist, but personal income growth seems like a reasonable way to do so.
According to Sara Leiseca of Pew, “Personal income sums up residents’ paychecks, Social Security benefits, employers’ contributions to retirement plans and health insurance, income from rent and other property, and benefits from public assistance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, among other items. Personal income excludes realized or unrealized capital gains, such as those from stock market investments.”
Despite those strong personal income growth numbers Mississippi enjoyed in 2020, it is true, as Reeves points out, that Tennessee, Texas and Florida outpace Mississippi in most areas.
But the bottom line is that Mississippi is at a disadvantage in many areas, not just in tax policy, when competing with those states. Mississippi does not have the tourism options and large cities that Florida has. Mississippi also does not have Nashville, becoming one of the leading cities in the nation, like Tennessee has. And Texas has multiple cities than are larger than our largest city, Jackson, and some of those liberal-leaning cities like Austin offer high-paying tech job options.
Where Mississippi competes directly with Tennessee and wins every day is in DeSoto County — a Memphis suburb.
For decades, DeSoto County has been one of Mississippi’s fastest growing counties, primarily because of people leaving Shelby County in Tennessee, home of Memphis, where there is no income tax, to move across the state line to live and pay that income tax that Reeves so disdains.
According to the 2020 Census, Shelby County grew by 0.2% during the last 10 years. Across the state line in Mississippi, where people have to pay income tax, DeSoto County grew by almost 15%.
People chose to live in DeSoto County and pay the income tax instead of across the state line in Tennessee where there is no income tax.
And in terms of economic development, DeSoto County also is winning against Tennessee — at least according to none other than Gov. Reeves.
“DeSoto County and Mississippi can compete with the best of the best…and win,” the governor said recently on social media.
Maybe, Mississippians could also get a $1 for each time the governor says that.
Madison Central’s Jake Norris powers in for the winning touchdown for the Madison Central Jaguars. (Photo by Keith Warren)
HATTIESBURG — Where to start on Madison Central’s marvelously competitive, exceedingly hard-fought 24-17 Class 6A championship victory over Brandon Friday night at The Rock at Southern Miss?
Rick Cleveland
I could tell you about the fierce hitting on both sides of the ball. Or about how well-coached both teams were, or how cleanly played the game was despite all the brutally hard knocks. I could tell you about heroic efforts on the part of opposing quarterbacks Jake Norris of Madison Central and 15-year-old sophomore Landon Varnes of Brandon. I could tell you about running backs De’Andre Pullen, who gained 132 yards rushing for Madison Central and Jarvis Durr, who ran for 116 and a touchdown for Brandon.
Or maybe I should just let Demario Davis, the New Orleans Saints linebacking great and former Brandon Bulldog who walked the sidelines throughout, sum it up.
“Man, there were a lot of tremendous athletes out there tonight on both sides,” Davis said, as fans of both teams waited to pose with him for photos. “It was a hard-fought, well-played game by two extremely well-coached teams. Both teams should be proud. I mean, that was one heck of a football game.”
And his team lost…
Those of us who follow Mississippi high school football expected nothing less. After all, you had two of the state’s largest high schools, natural rivals located in suburbs of Jackson. You had the 12-1 Madison Central Jaguars, winners of nine straight, going against the 11-2 Brandon Bulldogs, winners of 11 straight. You had two of the state’s top coaches, the Jaguars’ Toby Collums, matching wits with Brandon’s 30-year-old whiz kid Sam Williams.
It had all the makings. It did not disappoint.
Every time you thought one team clearly had the upper hand and momentum, the other team came off the deck and fired back.
Brandon landed the first big blow on the game’s first possession. Varnes, the 5-foot, 10-inch 15-year-old who has a learner’s permit but no driver’s license, nevertheless drove the Bulldogs 82 yards on eight plays, mixing Varnes’ hard running with some slick passing of his own. With blitzing Jaguars in his face on both plays, Varnes hit Lester Miller with a 33-yard pass and Devin Thigpen with a 40-yarder to the Jaguar one. After a holding penalty and a sack moved it back to the 23, Brandon faced third and goal from nearly a quarter of the football field. So, Varnes, again in the face of a relentless pass rush, hit Miller with a 23-yard touchdown. You should know Varnes was playing despite a strained knee ligament.
Said Brandon offensive coordinator Wyatt Rogers, daddy of Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers: “I’ll tell you this about Landon Varnes, he’s tougher than a lighter knot. He ain’t nothing but a winner.”
You could say the same about Madison Central quarterback Jake Norris, a strapping 6-2, 205-pound junior, who was the backup tight end before starting QB Vic Sutton suffered a bad knee injury two weeks before against Oxford.
Madison Central coach Toby Collums didn’t quite escape a Gatorade bath. (Photo by Keith Warren)
Norris passed and ran the Jags into position for a 35-yard Max Zuluga field goal that cut the deficit to 7-3 early in the second quarter. Then, Norris guided the Jags on a nine-play, 59-yard play touchdown drive for a 10-7 lead.
That’s the way the half ended, but Brandon quickly tied it 10-10 early in the third on Jalen Ballard’s 33-yard field goal. Two plays later, Norris hit the play of the game, a 79-yard strike to wide receiver Isiah Spencer, who was speeding down the middle of the field, two steps ahead of a defender. It was a play-action pass, which caught the Brandon safeties cheating up to stop the run. Norris threw a strike.
“We practiced it all week,” Spencer said. “We knew it was going to work, and it did.”
That made it 17-10. Again, the Bulldogs answered early in the fourth quarter with Durr capping a 78-yard drive with a one-yard touchdown run to tie the score at 17.
You just had the feeling that in such a cleanly played game that eventually a turnover might become the difference. And it did. With Brandon driving at its own 47, Braxton Barney, who was all over the field making plays this night, stripped the ball away from Durr, and Victor Hollins recovered at the Madison Central 48.
The Jaguars covered the 52 yards in seven plays, all runs, with Norris pulling away from a Bulldog into the end zone for the final two yards and the winning points with 3 minutes, 53 seconds remaining.
“He’s a dude now, he’s special,” Collums said of Norris, who ran for 46 yards and threw for 115. “I’m so proud for him and for our whole team and our community. It’s been a long time (22 years) since Madison Central won one of these. Doing it against a great team like Brandon makes it all the more special.”
The game ended the way these state championship games so often do, with tears of joy on one side and tears of abject sadness on the other. And here’s the deal: Both Madison Central and Brandon are stacked with high-level talent in freshmen, sophomore and junior classes. We could see this happen again next December and then beyond.
