Players and cheerleaders from the ‘58 and ‘59 championship teams gather on the steps of Mission Ridge after a reception in their honor. First row: Jerome Mincey, cheerleaders Joette Spires Spivey and Jean Bass Harwell, Sonny Sanders, Jackie Wilkes, John Johnson. Second row: Buddy Gunter, David Frier, Bucky Ellison, Ronnie Collins, Bill Calkins, Tommy Stevenson. Third Row: Gene Mincey, Wade Hall, Jim Hudson, Don Lewis, Rusty Price. Fourth Row: Billy Carter, Grady Cotton, Theron Wilson, Bobby Ficklin, Coach Jack Herndon, Oliver Johnson. (Photo/Barbara Ball)
The 1958 Mt. Zion Institute Wildcats.
WINNSBORO (April 8, 2016) — “The headline on The State newspaper read: ‘Winnsboro winless, scoreless, looses again,’ and it was more than we could take,” said Wade Hall, former right tackle on the 1958 State Champion Mt. Zion football team, in remarks to those attending the dedication of a monument on Saturday honoring that football team and the 1959 football team who were state champions the following year.
“We got together that summer and said that was going to end,” said Hall. Indeed, according to the ‘58-’59 Tusitala yearbook, the Mt. Zion Wildcats’ were a potent squad that fall, routing Saluda 35-0 in the season opener. Similar scores followed: 6-0, 13-0, 2-0, 7-0, 18-3, 3-0 with only one loss and that was by only 1 point.
“I was a senior that year,” Jackie Wilkes, now a Winnsboro Town Councilman, recalls. “We’d worn the same jerseys since I was in 10th grade. Because it looked like we might get to the state championship, the school decided late in the season to buy us new jerseys. I think they must have found a good buy on some, because the lowest number on the ‘new’ jerseys was 59,” Wilkes said, laughing. “Our quarterback’s number was in the 60s.”
There were other obstacles for the team that year and funny remembrances as well.
“That grassy area out front of Mt. Zion was our playing field and our practice field,” Wilkes said. “So it didn’t have much grass on it. It was always either muddy or dusty. Sometimes the referee would have to call time just for the dust to settle.”
Nevertheless, by the time the Wildcats finished the year with a 26-0 state championship victory over Batesburg-Leesville, they had shut out 9 teams and allowed only 26 points the entire season.
The next year was a remarkable repeat with the ‘59 Wildcats not only going undefeated, but never scoring less than 19 points in a game.
Following the dedication at Mt. Zion, the former teammates, cheerleaders were honored by their families and friends with a reception at Mission Ridge.
“Those were a couple of great years,” said Ronnie Collins (‘59), recalling the teams’ glory days. “And we were two great teams.”
