July 27, 2006.

As a junior at Southern Miss in 1994, well before I became versed in the fervor that is Mississippi high school football, word of a great team and superior running back trickled through newspapers across the state.

Brian Darden, was the best thing to hit the football field in years. The team he played for, Warren Central, was close to football royalty in this state.

Darden and the Vikings, of course, culminated that brilliant 1994 season into a Class 5A state championship. The year before, the Vikings had lost in the state semifinals to South Panola in what most observers considered 1993’s state championship game.

With workouts for this season starting on Monday for teams across the area, it will mark 12 years since a team from this area has played for the ultimate prize.

Vicksburg High came closest in 2001 with a 38-31 Class 5A North State Championship loss to eventual state champion Starkville. Like that 1993 game, many considered the Starkville game as the true state championship game that season.

The next year, with a preseason No. 1 ranking, the Gators were beaten in the first round of the playoffs.

That scenario has become all too familiar. Our teams are good enough to make the playoffs – only to be eliminated in the early rounds.

The question, or challenge, to players and coaches around this area, is why has football in this county fallen from the state’s best to first-round playoff exits in the past decade? Will football teams here be able to compete year-in and year-out for a state championship?.

Has football been surpassed by baseball as the signature sport in Warren County?.

Consider that since 1997, 11 baseball players have gone Division I, while Vicksburg High graduate Jordan Henry will start at Ole Miss in August. Two other rising high school seniors have already given verbal commitments to play at Mississippi State and Ole Miss, respectively.

Three youth league teams from Vicksburg are playing, or have played in a regional tournament this summer. The talent on all age levels is phenomenal.

So college baseball coaches have turned to this county for recruiting, while football coaches have moved on to different areas.

Football ruled this county for decades. Have helmets and shoulder pads been supplanted by bats and gloves?.

The season is just weeks away. Every player will have visions of hoisting a gold football signifying a state championship when it ends.

A review of articles and pictures from that 1994 team show the pure joy and emotion in winning a state title. It is something we’ve craved for more than a decade.

Practice starts Monday for WC, VHS and St. Aloysius. Porters Chapel starts workouts on Tuesday.

It’s time for the players and coaches to prove doubters wrong. It’s time to return football to glory.

Or has that glory faded?