By T. Scott Boatright
Friday night at L.J. “Hoss” Garrett Stadium, some of Ruston High School’s biggest “Homecoming heroes” ever will be celebrated as the 2021 Bearcats play host to Airline.
Approximately 35 to 40 members from the undefeated 1990 national champion Bearcat football team will be honored between the first and second quarter of Friday night’s Homecoming festivities.
That 1990 squad is generally thought to be Ruston’s best team ever, especially from the modern era. And that’s nothing to take lightly considering the Bearcats have won eight state titles (1925, 1941, 1947, 1951, 1982, 1986, 1988 and 1990) and have played in three other championship showdowns (1944, 1984 and 1998).
It all started with head coach Jimmy “Chick” Childress, a RHS graduate who played on the 1947 state championship football team. As head coach at Ruston from 1979 to 1991, he led the Bearcats to a 131-27 (.829) record and four state championships: 1982, 1986, 1988, and 1990.
That 1990 team went 15-0 and was named the national champion high school team after defeating Catholic of Baton Rouge 52-10 in the Class 4-A title game.
Current Northwestern State head coach Brad Laird was quarterback for the 1990 Bearcats and said that season meant much to the team after Childress had already made it known it would be his final season on the sidelines for RHS.
“With all of the success he had prior to that last season, and then to come out and say that it was going to be his last year, he knew the opportunity that team had and knew that it was a pretty special group of guys,” Laird said.
The 1990 Bearcats featured standouts like Laird, who went on to star at Northwestern State, Class 4A (the largest classification in Louisiana at that time), Offensive MVP Roymon Malcolm (a running back who went on to play at Auburn and then Northwestern State and who died in a car crash on May 9, 2009), Class 4A Defensive MVP Rodney Young, a defensive back who went on to start at LSU and later for the NFL’s New York Giants, defensive end Bobby Williams, who went on to play at LSU, defensive back Charles Green, who played collegiately at Nebraska, offensive guard Andrew Jacobs and center Nick Nelams, who all were first-team All State selections that season.
“The biggest thing I remember is how close that team was,” Laird said. “Many of us still are.
“It was a brotherhood. I don’t talk to them all daily, but 30 years later I still talk to a bunch of them quite often. I’ve had Jeff Williams, who played on that team, come and talk with my players. It was a special team to be part of.”
Laird won’t be making it to the weekend’s festivities, but as always, the Bearcats will be on his mind.
“With Friday night meetings before Saturday’s game against Tennessee-Martin, I won’t be able to be there,” Laird said. “But I’ve been talking to a lot of the guys about it and it looks like there’s going to be a great turnout. I hate that I have to miss it.”
Young, who now works for Residential Capital Partners and HomeVestors, will be making the journey from his Texas home to the Homecoming celebration.
“I’ll be driving in with my wife on Friday,” Young said. “I’m still very proud of what happened. It’s so long ago that I see things on Facebook and it triggers memories, but 30 years is a long time. There’s a lot I’ve forgotten. Over the years it’s soaked in more and more that we had a great and special team and accomplished something really great.
“This weekend is something I’m really looking forward to. I haven’t seen some of those guys since high school.”
Williams, now a Vice President at Origin Bank, is also looking forward to the festivities.
“Memories of that season come up quite often, especially during football season,” Williams said. “Guys who we played against in high school and then went on to play on the same team and became buddies with in college still talk a lot about that season to this day. They talk about it being the best team they’ve seen and all the athletes we had. I’m surprised, but it still comes up 30 years later.”
Williams said the Bearcats at that time knew they were part of something that doesn’t happen every day, or season.
“We just had that kind of confidence in that we knew we were the best,” Williams said. “We knew our second-teamers could go in against anyone and not miss a beat — nobody was going to beat us.”
Williams said Malcolm will be missed as the Bearcats celebrate Homecoming.
“Malcolm was huge for us that year,” Williams said. “He was a very talented runner and talented receiver, also. It was incredible to watch him work — watch him perform. He brought a lot of attention to the team because people showed up to see him, but while they were watching him they’d be seeing the rest of the team, too. It all just kept getting bigger and bigger as the season progressed.”
Ruston blitzkrieged through the 4A playoffs that season, outscoring opponents 200-27. The Bearcats opened postseason play by blasting Barbe 42-0, before defeating Natchitoches-Central 41-0, Baker 38-14, Thibodaux 27-3, and then blowing past a Catholic team that included standouts of its own such as Warrick Dunn 52-10 for the championship.
That’s an average winning playoff score of 40-5 that season.
“A lot of that team had been playing together since seventh grade,” Laird said. “With all the titles won before us, we had watched a lot of great Ruston teams and knew there were expectations about what we had to do. Individual honors and moving on to college were all on the backburner, all we cared about at the time was the importance of the team and winning our own championship and a last for Coach Childress.”
