Stevens excelled on courts, gridiron

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, April 1, 2003

This is the fifth in a series profiling the 2003 inductees into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in a banquet Friday in Vicksburg. Wednesday: James Ray Carpenter.

[4/1/03] First, Bob Stevens was a football player. Then, he was a handball player. Finally, he was a football coach. Now, he’s just a hall of famer.

Stevens, who has been involved in Mississippi athletics for nearly 60 years, will be one of eight inductees to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame honored at a banquet Friday night at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

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The 76-year-old Stevens played football at Southern Miss, coached at Central and Murrah high schools in Jackson, and was one of the top handball players in the state for years. He joked that he wasn’t sure which of his pursuits earned him the MSHOF nod.

“They just kind of combined me,” he said with a laugh.

That would be fitting, since any one of Stevens’ accomplishments seems to be enough to earn him recognition.

He was in the Marines during World War II, but the war ended six weeks before he finished his training and he never saw combat. Before enlisting, he had earned a football scholarship to Copiah-Lincoln Junior College and played one season there. After the war, he returned to Co-Lin and earned All-State Juco honors as well as a football scholarship to Southern Miss.

Stevens played on the offensive and defensive line for USM in 1947 and 48, and helped the Golden Eagles to a 14-6 record in his two seasons. In 1948, USM’s smallest margin of victory was 14 points and two of the Golden Eagles’ three losses came to Southeastern Conference powers Alabama and Auburn.

The success didn’t come without a price, though. Football was a rough game in those days, and playing both ways took a toll on a body, Stevens said.

“If you played the whole ballgame, especially me, I was completely worn out. I couldn’t move any limbs the next day,” Stevens said.

After his playing career was over, Stevens eased into coaching. He took a job as head football coach at Pass Christian High School in 1949, then moved to Meadville the next year.

Although he only spent five years at Meadville nearly 50 years ago, he made a lasting impression. Stevens said former players and friends from Meadville plan to fill two tables at Friday’s banquet.

“Smile? Smile and tears, that’s about it,” Stevens said when asked if the large Meadville contingent brought a smile to his face.

Stevens left Meadville in 1955 for Central High, where he coached football and basketball. As a basketball coach, he led Central to three City of Jackson championships in five seasons and an Overall Big Eight title before stepping down in 1960.

On the gridiron, he was even better.

Stevens made a name for himself by leading undermanned squads to successful seasons. Central won the Hub Bowl in 1965, and the Mississippi Bowl in 1968 and 1969, and Stevens led the North All-Stars to a 22-7 win in the 1966 Jackson Touchdown Club All-Star Game.

His appetite for game film was notorious, and Stevens said he could watch it the way some people watch movies for entertainment.

“I was kind of a nut toward film. If I could get film on a Saturday, I might go in in the morning and watch it though the afternoon,” Stevens said. “I couldn’t look at a game and get much out of it, but when I watched the film I could see a team’s tendencies.”

In 1971, Stevens moved across town from Central to Murrah and immediately turned the program around. Despite having only one letterman back on his first Murrah team, Stevens led the Mustangs to a Mississippi Bowl victory in 1971.

He followed that up with City of Jackson championships and back-to-back Capitol Bowl appearances in 1972 and 1973. He retired as a coach after the 1973 season, with a career record of 141-73-9.

For all his success in football and basketball, however, Stevens may have been even better on the handball court.

He fell in love with the game as a student at Southern Miss, and played until two major knee operations and a hip replacement last year forced him to give it up.

“The reason I quit was I did get knocked on the floor twice on my hip, and the doctor said that wasn’t too healthy,” Stevens said.

Over the years, Stevens accumulated plenty of accolades for his efforts. From 1961-70, he won six Mississippi State closed singles championships. Between 1971 and 1978, he teamed with his friend Charlie Thornton to win five Magnolia Open Masters Doubles titles and a slew of other doubles championships across the south, including the Southeastern Masters championship in 1979. The Southeastern title came with a bid to the national tournament, although he and Thornton were unable to play because of other commitments.

And as recently as 2001, he and Thornton teamed up to win a 50-and-over tournament in Texas.

“I learned about (handball) in a P.E. class down at Southern Miss,” Stevens said. “I just turned out to be one of the better ones in the P.E. class down there.”

As it turns out, he was better than a lot of people in a lot of classes. The MSHOF will be the fourth hall of fame induction for Stevens, who has also been enshrined in the Southern Miss Athletic Hall of Fame, the Co-Lin Athletic Hall of Fame, and the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame.

Although his success has been well-documented, Stevens joked that the accolades may simply be a case of bad memory on the part of voters.

“I did my playing in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, and I drew my honors in the 90s, so I say there’s no one around to refute how good I was,” Stevens said with a laugh. “With all of the people that are in there (the MSHOF), I feel humbled to be in there.”