I haven’t been on this earth long enough to know if 2014 was the best sports year ever in Warren County. If it wasn’t, it had to be at least in the top two or three.

We saw state champions crowned and a number of others come close. The state’s college teams reached dizzying heights during football season, which made Ole Miss’ long-awaited run to the College World Series a distant memory.

If only the Saints had held up their end, it might have been perfect. Alas.

Even with a forgettable NFL season to plod through, this was an unforgettable year on so many fronts it boggles the mind.

Start with basketball. The Vicksburg Gators reached their second state championship game in four seasons, only to once again run into the state’s best player. In 2011, it was future Duke star Rodney Hood of Meridian. In 2014 — and possibly again in 2015 — it was Callaway’s Malik Newman.

The Gators caught some breaks along the way to the Coliseum, but it’d take a horseshoe the size of Texas to be better than Newman on any sort of consistent basis. Maybe they’ll do it once when it matters most this year.

In the spring, we got Vicksburg’s Terrell Smith burning up the track, golf teams from Warren Central and St. Aloysius burning up the course, and Ole Miss’ baseball team blazing a path to Omaha for the first time since Nixon was president. The local athletes won state championships in their respective sports, while the Rebels made a good showing before bowing out of the College World Series.

Football season was, quite simply, phenomenal.

Locally, Warren Central started 8-0 and climbed into the discussion of the top teams in the state before fading late. St. Aloysius never did, and made it all the way to the Class 1A championship game for the first time in 33 years.

Even Porters Chapel Academy, despite a 2-8 record, provided some comic relief with its unrelenting drive toward the playoffs. The Eagles kept losing — seven straight games in all — but somehow kept improving their playoff standing and qualified for the MAIS Class A postseason as a wild card team.

If I’d have woken up with my head sewn to the carpet, I couldn’t have been more surprised than I was to do the math each week and realize PCA seemed like a lock for the playoffs by mid-October.

And that brings us to college football. What more can be said about this, the greatest season ever?

Alcorn State chewed through the SWAC to win its first conference title since Steve McNair was on campus.

Mississippi State was No. 1. Ole Miss got to No. 3. It was as if God was playing NCAA Football 2014 on his Playstation in the Sky, and decided to pick the Bulldogs and Rebels as His teams. Mississippi was the epicenter of the college football universe for a solid month and brought a welcomed positive light to our often-maligned corner of Earth.

Yes indeed, it was a great sports year. Maybe the greatest. Can it ever be topped? We’ll just have to wait and see what 2015 brings.

That’s the great thing about sports. No matter who you root for or where you’re from, there’s always next year.

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Ernest Bowker is a sports writer. He can be reached at 601-619-7120 or by email at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com