Dear Editor
I was saddened to learn Sunday night of the passing of Coach Gerald Peyton.
Coach Peyton was one of the first people I got to know on a professional level back in 2008 while working as sports editor at The Yazoo Herald.
He played his young men through rain, sleet and snow, as long as the opposing team was game.
Each year he took a group of young men who were dying for something to live for, and he turned them into competitors.
He sent countless young men who otherwise had no shot to college on athletics scholarships.
Coach Peyton and his teams repeatedly beat the odds, producing winning seasons at a school that did not even have lights on its baseball field.
He was a tough disciplinarian who did not mind kicking his best player off the team for the good of the program.
Coach Peyton was a mentor to so many young men and women in Yazoo City.
I had the pleasure of serving with Coach Peyton as a colleague at Yazoo City High School back in 2011-12.
He was a solid rock in a school that resembled an earthquake each day.
No matter what happened, his demeanor never changed. He was simply Coach Peyton, and he will be missed.
Bryan Davis
