Brandon – Pearl Meet One Last Time at Lewis Gene Strickland Field
High school Football Friday nights in the fall is a special time to Mississippians and has been for close to a century. High school football games are more than just games; it’s a place to come hang out, visit with friends, meet new ones and catch up with old ones. There’s a reason many towns shut down on Friday evenings in the fall, because those times are just that precious.
Outside of the game of football are those gathering places – those stadiums and facilities that people adore and love to go to. Mississippi has some historic football stadiums on the high school ranks, like Between the Bricks in Laurel, Ray Stadium in Meridian, South Pike’s historic stadium as well as Columbus high school and more.
Lewis Gene Strickland Field in Brandon, MS is one of the state’s oldest high school football stadiums and Friday night LGS Field will likely see it’s last Rankin County Super Bowl between Brandon and Pearl.
Just this year Brandon was awarded funding for a new stadium that will be built behind the new high school off of Highway 18. Dirt work has started on the new stadium, in hopes of having the facility ready by next year.
This will be the 65th edition of one of the State’s biggest high school rivalries, but the last on a field full of blood, sweat, tears, heartbreak, jubilation, and decades of cleat marks made by hundreds of players.
Not many stadiums are left standing like historic LGS Field in Brandon. From the concrete seats, to the tight sidelines, where you could reach out and touch a player and more – walking onto LGS Field is literally taking a trip back in time and you can fill the history every time you are there.
Generations of families, both Pearl and Brandon alike have memories of this very field. Players like Jerious Norwood, Justin Jenkins and many more have played on this field on Friday nights and the class of 2016 gets to make one more stand on a field where generations of players, dads, uncles, cousins and brothers have been before.
It may not sink in with the participants right now, but when they get older and can look back, they will realize they closed the storybook on one of Mississippi’s greatest high school venues and will open a new era across town.
It’s Pearl – Brandon, one last time at Louis Gene Strickland Field. Let the emotion overfloweth.
