BJ Smithhart doesn’t really remember the bus ride to Veterans Memorial Stadium that day.

It’s hard to blame him really, seeing as how it was 20 years ago and I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Eggs, maybe?

Warren Central took three buses to the 1994 Class 5A championship game, and Smithhart rode on the last one. The only thing he does recall is that the ride to Jackson was as quiet as a mouse funeral when the bus slowly rumbled into the parking lot. Anything other than complete silence would have been grounds for a swift kick in the pants from scout team coach Larry Tyrone.

“You did not say a word,” Smithhart said. “If you did, you’d be moonwalking for about the next week.”

The ride will be a couple of hours longer this time around, but he’ll be able to say whatever he wants seeing as how he’s the one calling the shots these days. The seventh-year St. Aloysius head coach was but a lowly sophomore who rarely played on the 1994 Viking team that beat Provine for Warren County’s last gridiron state championship.

But now he’s back, the lone representative from the ’94 class hoping to bring another gold football to the place he’s always called home.

“I was so lucky to be a part of that team, not just because of the state championship, but just the whole atmosphere surrounding the program at that time,” he said in his spacious office in St. Al’s fieldhouse. “I just thought everyone had it that good, and that’s one of the things you want to create as a coach. Hopefully we’ve done that here.”

He admits for that one he was really a fan just along for the ride. Now he’s the one driving as the Flashes face off against Cathedral in Davis Wade Stadium for the Class 1A championship. Smithhart will be the only person to participate in Warren County’s last two state title games, and he’s hoping the result will be the same as the first time he walked off the bus. There’s a lot more pressure added to the situation now that he’s the head coach, but the goal remains the same. Have fun, enjoy the moment, and bring back a ring for the region that he’s grown to love.

“I’m proud to say that’s where I’m from and that’s what I did, but also hopefully we’re doing the same things over here,” Smithhart said of his playing days at Warren Central. “So when our kids leave and go to college and people ask, ‘Where’d you play?’ They’ll say St. Al, and it means something to them.”

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Cory Gunkel is a reporter. He can be reached at 601-636-4545, Ext. 145, or by email at cory.gunkel@vicksburgpost.com.