OC And A Lucky 13 in ‘74
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
There was always something eerily significant about the number 13 as it seemed to pursue the Opelousas Catholic football team throughout the final months of 1974.
Undefeated OC won 13 games that year and it was also the 13th season that Mickey Mills had coached football at the school where he graduated nearly 20 years before.
And on Dec. 13, 1974 – exactly 50 years ago on Friday – OC won the first football state championship in St. Landry Parish history.
“It was (Dec. 13) was also my brother’s birthday,” Mills said from his home earlier this week as he discussed a season that ended with a 10-6 championship victory over South Cameron on a cold, cloud-covered night just several hundred yards from the Gulf of Mexico.
Mills has said the 1974 district championship team (13-0-1) didn’t possess an abundance of potential college signees.
“It wasn’t my most talented team (at OC). I would have to say the 1975 team probably had more talent, but I knew that we could go far (in 1974). What we did have was a great defense. Before the playoffs, we had allowed only 27 points in 10 games. You always have great defenses on championship teams,”
The Vikings had enough defensive talent in 1974 Mills indicated, to play a variety of different alignments, an element essential to competing for a Class 2A title.
Mills said that defense would become evident during the Vikings’ championship playoff run.
OC handled talented offenses against Marion High in Lake Charles and the next week against Newman in a second-round, rain-drenched game delayed several times when the lights faltered at Donald Gardner Stadium.
In the semifinal final contest on another cold December night in Homer, the Vikings won a tied game after tabulating more first downs (9-7).
Ken Cannon, the football team statistician in 1974, remembers the anxiety of the OC coaching staff as the game reached a conclusion, counting first downs and checking with him to make sure he had the right total.
Cannon, who was on the sidelines for the Homer game played near the Arkansas state line, recalled the ferocity of the collisions as ball carriers were brought to the ground.
“It was the hardest hitting game I had ever seen. Players were getting slammed down on just about every play,” Cannon said last week.
At South Cameron
Mills noted that he and his players were greeted by an unnerving symphony of duck calls from the South Cameron spectators as the Vikings stepped onto the Tarpons’ field for pregame warmups in Creole.
“It seemed that’s all you heard. There was a large crowd on the home side and there were even spectators who climbed up into the trees around the stadium. They had their duck calls too,” Mills remembered with a laugh.
To keep South Cameron off balance, Mills designed a pass play on the Vikings’ first snap.
“We opened with a pass, sort of a trick play. Wayne Benson threw 15-yards to Randy Wagley,” Mills said.
OC led 7-6 late in the fourth quarter when Benson played a key part in helping with the final score.
“It was fourth down. We told Wayne to run a bootleg. If (Wagley) was open, he would throw it. If not, we wanted Wayne to run, since at the time we were about on the 20-yard line,” said Mills.
That play was also crucial in determining the outcome.
Wagley was apparently covered, so Benson kept the ball and ran for the first down, severely injuring an ankle, but collecting enough yardage that allowed John Womack to later enter the game and kick a field goal.
“(Benson) liked playing baseball, but he couldn’t play that spring because of the football injury,” Cannon said.
Into The Present
The 1974 Vikings’ football team (pictured in the photo for this story) was honored by the school during 2024 Homecoming ceremonies at Donald Gardner.
Mills, now 85, was unable to attend.
For many years after the championship game, Mills said he would annually receive phone calls from Daryl Wagley on the anniversary of the victory.
“Daryl would call on December 13 and ask me if I knew what day it was. Then after Daryl died, Randy would call me,” Mills added.
The calls by his former players however have become more infrequent over time, Mills said.
Nevertheless, the lingering impact of what happened 50 years ago and the sounds of those duck calls filtering across the Cameron Parish marshland that night are difficult for a former championship head coach to dismiss.
“It (the state championship) is something that I have still thought about quite a bit. Something like that is a memory that never leaves you,” Mills noted.
