Yazoo City: Home to two Super Bowl stars and so much football history

PITTSBURGH - Feb. 9, 2023 - PRLog -- By: Rick Cleveland

YAZOO CITY – Today we take a football-themed tour of Yazoo City, birthplace and hometown of defensive tackle Fletcher Cox and running back Kenneth Gainwell, who will play for the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday's Super Bowl.

Cox played at Yazoo City High, while Gainwell, a distant cousin, played at Yazoo County High, about eight miles south of town.

This seems an absolutely perfect time for this tour. Our guide is Yazoo City High School athletic director Tony Woolfolk, who played for the Yazoo High Indians, the Alcorn State Braves and later was Cox's high school coach. We are to meet at the high school. But first, I drive into town on Jerry Clower Boulevard, named for the famous, countrified comedian, who before becoming famous, played tackle for Mississippi State. Clower once told me, "You remember when ol' Showboat Boykin scored seven touchdowns in one Egg Bowl for Ole Miss? Well, he stepped right on my big belly when he scored the last one."

I take a left off Clower Boulevard onto Willie Morris Parkway, named for the great Mississippi author, once a Yazoo City halfback. Willie Morris described his hometown as "half Delta, half hills, all crazy." Crazy about football, that's for sure. Willie once wrote a short story about high school football titled "The Fumble" and a book titled "The Courting of Marcus Dupree." If you haven't read the story or the book, you should. Willie often described himself as "Yazoo City's other Willie" in deference to fellow Yazoo native Willie Brown, the Pro Football Hall of Famer and Oakland Raiders Super Bowl hero who died in 2019. Willie Morris would quickly tell you, "Willie Brown was only the greatest cornerback in football history."

https://mississippitoday.org/2023/02/08/yazoo-city-super-...

http://youtu.be/334u9RJlDwU



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