By T. Scott Boatright
Firmly founded in a winning tradition, the Ruston High School Bearcats have hoisted a state football championship trophy nine times in program history.
Those titles came in 1925,1941,1947,1951,1982,1986,1988,1990 and 2023.
The Bearcats have also made four other title game appearances, finishing as runners up in 1944, 1984, 1998 and 2022.
And now 2024 will add another championship game notch for the Bearcats in either the championship or runner up category,
Not much information can be found about that first state that came in 1925, except that Ruston was named state champs by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, which did not hold formally sanctioned postseason games but instead simply declared state championships.
The Bearcats’ 9-3 Thanksgiving Day win over previously undefeated Minden that season was the deciding factor for the LHSAA in presenting Ruston with its first state championship.
Ruston had two players earn All-State status that season, an end by the last name of Kelly and a fullback with the last name of Zeiderich.
The Bearcats also had a pair of All-State selections on the 1941 1A state championship team — end Warren Wray and halfback “Dub” Jones, who helped lead Ruston to a 14-0 title-game win over LaGrange.
Jones, whose sons Bill, Bert and Tom all later turned in stellar football careers for the Bearcats, went on to play for both LSU (his first college season) and Tulane before becoming a standout for the Cleveland Browns after World War II.
Six years later, the Bearcats faced LaGrange again in the 1947 Class 1A championship game with Ruston coming out on top 26-12.
Quarterback Wyman Lee Collie, end Joe Colvin and guard Herbert Colvin were All-State selections from that RHS squad, which included other solid Bearcats such as Jimmy “Chick” Childress, Jimmy Wrentz, Joe Kavanaugh, Billy McBride, Donald Hoogland, George Berry and Tommy Boatright.
In 1951, the Bearcats roared to a 20-6 home win over Ponchatoula in the 1A championship showdown as the Bearcats completed the season undefeated.
Three Bearcats from that squad earned All-State accolades — guard Henry Delony, back Charlie Barham and running back Lacy Stinson.
Future Louisiana Tech and Canadian Football League standout Tom Hinton also played as a young Bearcat on that 1951 state championship team, which was led by the defense as Ruston outscored its opposition 454-112 that year.
It took 31 years for the Bearcats to earn another state title, which came when head coach Chick Childress returned to RHS and guided the Bearcats, quarterbacked by his son Dan Childress, to an 8-0 win inside the New Orleans Superdome for the 1982 Class 4A title.
Prep Classic records were set in that contest for the fewest combined points (8), first downs (14), total yards (213) and most punts (nine).
The only scores in that game came when defensive linemen Michael Brooks and Lee Porter teamed to tackle Neville running back Anthony Gipson in the end zone for a safety and the Bearcats’ special teams blocked a Neville punt for a touchdown.
Brooks and tackle Bob Hearn were All-State selections that season for the Bearcats, with Brooks and defensive back Tyrone Jones going on to later play in the NFL.
The Bearcats did it again in 1986, this time going to overtime to earn a 31-24 state championship win over Slidell.
Kenny Wright’s four-yard touchdown run in OT, his second scoring scamper of the game, provided the margin of victory for the Bearcats, who also saw Shannon Aultman throw a 49-yard touchdown pass to Gerald Kennedy in the second half before Gary Williams’ 11-yard touchdown run helped Ruston push the game into overtime.
Center Bret Anderson and Aultman each earned All-State honors that season.
Ruston’s even-year playoff success continued in 1988 as the Bearcats bested Shaw 28-14 for the 4A championship inside the Superdome.
The highlight of the game may have been a simple tackle made by Bearcat Michael Parker, who had missed the previous year and a half for bone cancer surgery and treatment.
Arguably one of the best Bearcat football teams of all time — the 1990 squad — blasted Catholic Baton Rouge 52-10 to finish with a record of 15-0.
That win earned them a national high school championship in addition to the state title.
Current Natchitoches Central High School 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.
That 1990 Bearcats team 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 in 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.
It also included the likes of 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.
Ruston blitzkrieg 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 during that playoff run.
Not that the Bearcats have ever needed to be pushed to get fired up for any kind of championship game, but they had more incentive for the 1990 title contest after Coach Childress announced before the season kicked off that it would be his last on the sidelines.
“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.”
The championship magic returned for the Bearcats last year as quarterback Josh Brantley took over in the second half with both his arms and legs to lead Ruston to a 31-17 win over Zachary in the Division I Nonselect School Championship Football Championship.
Brantley, who was named the game’s MVP, totaled 333 yards of offense, throwing for 194 while adding another 134 and scoring scampers of three, seven and a 24-yard naked bootleg to the left that he took untouched to paydirt with 1:05 remaining to set off an early start for Ruston’s state title celebration.
Running back Jordan Hayes, defensive linemen Geordan Guidry, linebacker Jadon Mayfield and defensive back Aidan Anding all captured 2024 All-State accolades for the Bearcats with Mayfield being named the defensive MVP.
That’s a look at the Ruston High Book of Football Championships so far, with another chapter set to be written Saturday afternoon in the Superdome.
Here’s hoping the Lincoln Parish Journal is writing about 10 Bearcats state titles heading into next year’s title game.
