a season to celebrate

This month marks the 25th anniversary of a very special occasion in the state’s baseball history. In May of 1989, Hinds Community College became the first Mississippi school to reach the Junior College World Series. But the story runs much deeper than just that fact. The 1989 season was the first since the merger of the predominantly white Raymond campus with the predominantly black Utica campus. The athletic programs also merged and were split up between the two campuses. Raymond got baseball. Hinds’ Rick Clarke remained the head coach, with Utica’s George McQuitter becoming his assistant. The players, heated rivals in 1988, were thrown into a blender. “It was a very, very difficult transition,” Clarke told The (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger years later. But a funny thing happened amid the tumult: The team started winning. Terre Woods, a former Utica player, had a monster season with the bat. Jeff Long, a Raymond player in 1988, set a team record for runs. Doug Thomas hit 16 homers. Mark Anders won 11 games and saved nine more. The Eagles rolled to an MACJC division championship, then claimed the state title, then the region and finally the district, which sent them on to the nationals at Grand Junction, Colo. They didn’t bring home a national crown, but they did blaze a trail to the Juco World Series that many Mississippi schools would follow. And, really, the ’89 Eagles did a lot more than that, taking a tough situation and turning it into something we can applaud 25 years later.