[12/22/02] UTICA For those wanting to know how Michael Fields runs his Hinds AHS football program, just consider him saying that he doesn’t think Randy Moss would be where he is today if he had coached him in high school.

It’s not pompousness or self-grandizing, but rather a straight-forward message from a man who brought a winning attitude to a football team and a town starved for a winner, talking about one of the most talented, yet misguided, players in the NFL.

“If I was his coach from grade school on up, he might not be as big a thug as he is now,” said Fields, honored as the 2002 Vicksburg Post Area Coach of the Year. “We’d have tried to save him, but I don’t put up with that.”

Fields brought that attitude from the football fields of Utica High to Hinds Community College and then to Mississippi College where the standout receiver had tryouts with several NFL teams.

He ended up in Canada with the Montreal Allouettes, and was on a bad team.

“We were horrible,” he said with a chuckle.

Late in the season, the team cleaned house and an NFL coach named Marv Levy took over the Montreal team.

“I remember the first time I saw Marv Levy,” Fields said of the coach who later led the Buffalo Bills to four straight Super Bowls. “He came in and said, Hi Mike.’ I was like, hey, this could be something good.

“He brought me into his office and said they were sending me to Toronto.”

It was just as the United States Football League had folded and each Canadian team was only allowed so many American, or import, players. He finished the season as a wide receiver with the Toronto Argonauts, whose quarterback was J.C. Watts, a former Oklahoma signal caller and current Representative in the United States Congress.

After the season, he was offered a contract by the Toronto team but decided not to sign.

“Six weeks later, I got called to a camp in Atlanta,” Fields said. “It was the first six weeks that I can remember that I hadn’t trained.”

His once-4.23-second 40-yard dash was now a 4.5 and Fields lost out on the final test the 40 to another receiver.

It was then he decided to start coaching and he looked no farther than his home Utica High.

Two years after the last camp, he was invited to another camp in Alabama and was getting ready to go back to Canada, but a team official remembered him from the first time he didn’t sign a contract and reneged the offer, ending any dreams of Fields playing football again.

“I just try to tell people never give up,” Fields said.

Now, he’s continuing to instill those values in his players and this year they paid big dividends.

Fields moved to Raymond when Utica High closed and was an assistant before becoming head coach for two seasons.

This summer, he inherited a Hinds AHS team that was riding a 19-game losing streak.

Using a few carryovers and several talented underclassmen, Fields brought his team to four wins and reached the Class 2A state playoffs.

The War Dawgs lost close games to Class 4A opponents Raymond and Port Gibson early in the season and were “several plays away” from being 8-3, the coach said.

“When we got that first win, it opened a whole new world for us,” said senior All-Region defensive lineman Devin Ross. “You lose focus and you lose ability because you start thinking you can’t do it. But it came back to us.”

Ross is one of several players that gave all the credit for the program’s rebirth to the head coach with a wide smile, but a no-nonsense attitude.

“If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be there,” Ross said. “That’s the truth. He had his help, but he had a lot on his shoulders coming to a team that had those 19 games he was staring at. He came in with all that on him and got us to the playoffs? Now, that says a lot.”

The War Dawgs return their quarterback, top running back and several other starters on offense and defense as the team enters the second year of the new Fields’ era.

“I see this program on the rise,” Fields said. “You can see it. The kids are flocking to the weight room. They love it.

“… In time, I can’t give you a date, but in time, we’ll be in the (state championship).”