A little over a decade ago, I was fresh out of college and entering my journalism career at The Yazoo Herald in my hometown of Yazoo City.
I started work in December, and my first task was to compile an All-Area team for the football season that had just ended. On top of picking players for awards, I also had to name the 2007 Coach of the Year.
There were four head football coaches in Yazoo County, and one of those was Riley Myers, who was in his second stint with Manchester Academy.
Myers began his coaching career at Manchester, just after he left a great career as one of Archie Manning’s favorite targets at Ole Miss.
He was also a standout baseball player for the SEC school, but according to a 1971 article in the Clarion Ledger, an elbow injury forced Myers back into football full time.
Sadly, a retired Myers was recently killed in a tree cutting accident in Magee.
Myers enjoyed a long career coaching in the academy system in Mississippi, which included a stint with Indianola Academy (1990-93).
At the end of the day, Myers was named the top coach in Yazoo County for 2007.
He had guided the Maverick program to one of its best seasons at 7-3, which included a playoff appearance.
But that wasn’t the only news Myers made that year.
While coaching against Winston Academy that fall, Myers suffered a stroke on the sidelines.
Later that year, he told me, “My right foot wouldn’t go anywhere. It was like someone nailed it to the ground right there.”
Fortunately, a doctor was present on the sidelines and was able to summon an ambulance in time to get Myers to the hospital.
The next week, Manchester traveled to Washington School, and Myers traveled with the team, only as a spectator of course.
The next week, he was in the press box giving orders, and the following week he was back on the sidelines.
Prior to this, Myers was no stranger to off-the-field battles.
While coaching at East Holmes in 1989, the private school’s administration made the decision to forfeit a game against Heritage Academy (Columbus) reportedly because the Heritage team had a single African American player.
Several athletes left the East Holmes team, and multiple national news outlets reported on the situation, according to the Clarion Ledger’s Billy Watkins, who covered the story in 1989.
Myers told news outlets back then that he was in favor of playing the game from the start.
In the end, East Holmes reinstated the players and opted to play the game, in which Myers’ Raiders reportedly won 7-0.
The following year, Myers was hired by Indianola Academy, taking over for Ronnie Gray, according to a 1990 article from The Enterprise-Tocsin.
Myers told The E-T at the time that while interviewing for the job as the Colonels’ head coach, he specifically asked what the school would do if faced with the same situation he dealt with in 1989.
“When I interviewed here, I asked the question if confronted with such a situation here, what would IA do, and they assured me we will play the game,” he said.
Myers would go on to complete a 20-23 run with the Colonels in 1993. He led the team to an 8-4 record in 1991 but followed that season with a 5-5 1992 campaign and a 3-7 mark in 1993.
Myers would have a successful coaching career with multiple schools, including Pillow Academy.
Myers led the Mustangs to a state championship in 1999 after posting an 11-1 record that year.
I got to know Myers pretty well during my tenure at The Yazoo Herald.
He was definitely an old-school coach in a rapidly changing football culture.
There wasn’t as much focus on concussions in 2008 as there is today, but he often lamented to me the ways in which players reacted to injuries “these days” as opposed to when he was playing the game.
“In my day, when we got hurt, we got right back out there,” Myers told me one afternoon while we were discussing his struggles with modern-day players and parents of athletes.
The then 58 year-old Myers certainly practiced what he preached by traveling with his team a week after suffering a stroke.
Myers would serve one more season as head coach at Manchester.
If Myers had never coached a day in his life, he would still have been remembered as a great Ole Miss Rebel football and baseball player.
Tack on over three decades of a successful high school coaching career, and it’s not a stretch to say that Mississippi lost a sports legend last week.
