Legendary Kosciusko High School football coach Ricky Black will be the guest of honor at a Jackson Preparatory School reception that will be held on Sunday, Aug. 12, at the Jackson school’s Centre for Arts and Leadership.
In late June, Black was awarded the National High School Coaches Association “Coach of the Year” award within the football division.
According to a Jackson Prep press release, Black was nominated for the award by the Mississippi Association of Coaches.
Black coached at KHS for 8 years total, with five as head coach. As the Whippet head coach from 1975 until 1979, his record was 36-6, according to the Mississippi High School Football Historical Society website. Including his three years as an assistant coach, his record was 49-6.
His final Whippet team went undefeated, 10-0. Three of his KHS teams finished the season with only one loss.
In 1980, he accepted the head coaching job at Tupelo High School.
Based on points only, the 1977 squad was the most domnant of his five KHS teams. That year’s offense scored 359 points and the defense allowed 70, which is more than a 5-to-1 scoring advantage. It was the most points scored in a season by a Black team from 1977 until 1999, by which time Black was coaching at Jackson Prep. However, that Jackson Prep team played three more games than the seventy-seven Whippets.
According to the Holmes Community College Athletics website, Black’s KHS teams won “four conference championships and two bowl games.”
Black attended what was then Holmes Junior College (now Holmes Community College), in Goodman, where he played football and basketball. He is both a Holmes Community College Sports Hall of Fame and Mississippi Community College Sports Hall of Fame member, according to holmesathletics.com.
Coach Black completed his studies at Mississippi State University, where he later became an assistant football coach when he took a six-year break from his high school coaching career from 1991 until 1996. In 1997 he accepted the head coaching job at Jackson Prep.
In 2016, when Black became the second-winningest coach in Mississippi high school football history, USA Today—High School Sports ran a story about his wife, Linda, who had not missed a single game. The two met when they were students at Holmes Junior College, according to the article.
When it was announced that Black had won the national coach of the year honor, Jackson Prep Athletic Director expressed a sentiment many in Kosciusko are likely to agree with.
“We are so proud of Coach Black,” Jackson Prep Athletic Director Will Crosby said, in a press release. “And the Prep Family is excited for the rest of the country to know what we’ve known for years: that Ricky Black is one the best to ever coach the game.”
For any former KHS players or Attala County friends interested in attending the reception, Jackson Prep’s original tweet is headed by “Join Us.”
For more information Jackson Prep may be reached at 601-939-8611. The event begins at 4 p.m.
