This is the first in a four-part series chronicling Warren Central’s football program as it celebrates its 40th birthday this season. Wednesday: Lum Wright turns Warren Central into a powerhouse.

In the 40 years since it opened, Warren Central has become one of the most storied programs in the history of Mississippi high school football.

WC has won championships, both official and mythical. It has had long winning streaks and very few losing streaks. The players who have gone on to the college ranks, as well as the coaches who cut their teeth in the Viking system, are too numerous to count.

In the last 34 years, there have been only two losing seasons. And even one of those ended in a playoff berth, one of 20 straight for WC.

It wasn’t always like this, though. In the beginning, the Vikings were a ragtag bunch of players trying to find their way and make any kind of mark on the state football scene.

&#8220They had pretty good athletes, but they were playing as an independent and the only way to get a schedule was to play every strong team within driving distance,” said Jim Taylor, who started his coaching career in the Warren Central junior high program in 1966 and coached at the high school from 1969-96. &#8220They were everybody’s homecoming.”

Warren Central opened in 1965, the product of the consolidation of county schools Culkin, Jett and Redwood. All three had their heroes and their high points when it came to football.

Culkin had produced a number of future stars, including future Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Glynn Griffing at quarterback and receiver Preston Riley, who had a long NFL career.

Redwood produced Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Johnny Brewer, who later starred at Ole Miss and in the NFL.

And a number of players from Jett went on to star in the college and pro ranks, among them NFL Hall of Famer Billy Shaw. Shaw made his mark at Carr Central, a city school, but started at Jett.

Those players had come and gone by the time of the merger, though. In 1965, all three programs were in a down cycle that wasn’t solved by combining forces.

&#8220The programs at that time were kind of weak, with the exception of Culkin,” said Sid Beauman, a receiver and defensive back for the first Warren Central team and now Vicksburg’s South Ward alderman. &#8220We didn’t have a lot of depth. If somebody got hurt, we were in trouble.”

They were lucky no one got hurt on the way to practice.

At the time, there was no practice field or stadium at WC. What would become Viking Stadium was still under construction, so the team played its home games at either City Park or St. Aloysius.

And the practice field was located in a hollow across Mississippi 27. The team jogged about a half-mile from the school to the field, located a short distance from what is now Beechwood Elementary, every day. The spring before, the team had gone the other direction on Highway 27, to Culkin Academy.

&#8220We called it Valhalla – the Valley of the Gods,” Beauman said of the field in the hollow. It also became the name of the school’s yearbook.

Even the now-iconic all-red uniforms weren’t around yet. The colors of Jett, Culkin and Redwood were combined, giving Warren Central a gray, red and light blue color scheme.

&#8220I still have my letterman’s jacket, and it’s almost like a powder blue,” said Bubba Hanks, a running back for the ‘65 team and now the principal at Vicksburg Intermediate School. &#8220We tried to have colors that covered all the schools.”

The players made the most of it, however, and actually enjoyed some successes. The Vikings notched their first win only two games into their inaugural season, beating Brandon 7-6 with a late goal-line stand.

WC’s first touchdown also came in that game, on a 30-yard pass from Donnie Frith to Hanks. The Vikings had been shut out by Rolling Fork 26-0 the week before.

&#8220It was cold and pouring down rain. It was just a sloppy ballgame,” Hanks said of the game against Brandon, which was pushed back to a Saturday because of Hurricane Betsy. &#8220(The touchdown) was just a little out pattern. I went out into the flat and ran into the end zone.”

The first season ended with a 3-8 record, and included a few near-misses. Two weeks after their first win, the Vikings nearly upset a powerful St. Al team before losing 14-12 on a late touchdown run by legendary Flashes’ QB Eddie Ray.

&#8220It was really a pretty good first year, because nobody ever thought we’d win a ballgame and we won three or four games that first year,” Beauman said, adding that there was no friction caused by old rivals teaming together. &#8220Most of us knew each other so well from playing against each other that it went real smooth.”

That wasn’t the case the next season. Whatever success the 1965 team had was the result of the 22 seniors on its roster. When they graduated the following spring, a number of young players stepped into their place.

The first head coach, Ernie Albritton, resigned after the 1965 season. He was replaced by Donald Oakes. The combination of a new coach and new players had disastrous results.

The 1966 team went 0-10 and scored only four touchdowns the entire season. It remains the only winless team in school history, and is also the last time WC lost as many as four games in a row.

&#8220If you talk to any of the guys that were on that (1965) team, they’ll tell you it was a good bunch of athletes and if we could’ve played together three or four years we would’ve done some things,” Beauman said. &#8220My brother was a starter the next year as a junior, and they had to start over.”

The 1967 team had a 2-4-3 record that included three ties in a row – one of them to St. Al, the school’s biggest rival at the time – and Oakes gave way to Dewey Partridge before the 1968 season.

The 1968 team just missed a .500 record, falling 27-20 to Franklin County in the last game of the season. And in 1969 the Vikings went 3-6-1, including a fourth loss to St. Al in five years.

&#8220It just never really got off the ground,” Butch Newman, a quarterback on the 1970 team and now an assistant superintendent for the Vicksburg Warren School District, said of WC’s early years. &#8220Anytime you take three schools and combine them, it’s going to take a few years. It kept going through the molding process.”

Newman had transferred to Warren Central from Rolling Fork before the 1970 season. He helped the team to a 3-6 record in his first campaign, as well as the biggest victory in school history to that time.

In the first game of the 1970 season, Newman threw two touchdown passes as the Vikings beat St. Al for the first time, 14-0.

&#8220That was a big shot in the arm. It gave us a lot of confidence,” Newman said.

Although it didn’t lead to the kind of season the Vikings would have liked in 1970, the win over St. Al did mark a turning point for the program. No longer would the Vikings be a cakewalk for their crosstown rivals.

And the following spring, a Texas wind brought home a native son who would ensure they wouldn’t be an easy win for anyone else.

Ever.