PORT GIBSON — In football circles, there’s something called “The Wilderness.”

It’s a term that’s vague, yet understood by all. It represents a scary place no team wants to enter, where losing is common and lost seasons pile up like trash on the curb.

Port Gibson’s wilderness is more than that.

For the better part of two decades the Blue Waves have been trying to find their identity, but winning moments have been few over recent football history in Claiborne County.

Port Gibson has had one playoff appearance and one winning season — neither occurred in the same year — since 1992.

There have been winless seasons and losing streaks that lasted well into a second. Since 2003, the Waves are an abysmal 7-42. Four of those wins came in 2004, when they made the playoffs.

Every few years, however, change comes to places like Port Gibson. The latest man to try his hand at pulling the program out of the abyss is Willie Brown, who won a state championship at Hazlehurst in 2005 before spending two seasons at another perennially struggling program, Greenville-Weston. Brown knows salvaging the Waves’ floundering ship won’t be easy, but he’s willing to give it a shot.

“We’ve got a lot of potential. We hadn’t had a whole lot of time to work with them. We’ve got a lot to work on, but the kids are in good spirits,” said Brown, who was hired in July. “We’ve got to change the mindset, change the attitude. It’s always easier said than done.

“We’ve just got to preach it to them every day and remind them. That’s all we can do.”

Brown will start this reclamation project from rock bottom. No starters return from last year’s team, but given how the season went that might not be a bad thing.

The Waves snapped a 12-game losing streak with a 14-7 win over Crystal Springs in the season opener, then lost their last nine games. The finale was an ugly 68-0 loss to Lawrence County. Over the last two seasons, Port Gibson has been shut out 11 times in 18 games and scored a total of 42 points.

“All areas,” Brown said with a chuckle when asked where the team needs to improve. “I think we have some guys that can run the football, but we need to work on the offensive line.”

Further evidence of the Waves being a work in progress comes in their depth chart.

As late as last week, less than two weeks before the season opener with Crystal Springs, Brown said he hadn’t settled on any starters other than quarterback JoDºarius Grigsby. The sophomore will lead a wing-based option attack that tries to utilize the speed of the backfield.

“I like that wing-T offense he’s running. It’ll work. We’ve just got to learn the offense and execute the plays,” Grigsby said.

That’s about all Brown seemed to be hoping for. He knows pulling Port Gibson out of its long funk won’t happen overnight and is stressing baby steps and patience.

“The goal for this year is to get a team together,” Brown said. “The goal is to compete. We want to compete with every team we play and do our best.”