News 25’s 25 Teams in 25 Days: West Harrison Hurricanes
GULFPORT, Miss. (WXXV) — In 2022, 13 years of losing football was reversed at West Harrison High School, where the Hurricanes are coming off their best season in program history. Needless to say, it’s been a long time coming.
“Came a long way, man,” said West Harrison senior defensive lineman Tayedeus Jacobs.
“Everybody knows, being back 2-8, we don’t like that, so we just come out harder,” said West Harrison senior defensive back/wide receiver Torrance Skidmore. It’s just a personal thing.”
“I mean I think to my wife it probably felt better because I was happier on most Saturday’s or more Saturday’s than I’ve been ever before,” said West Harrison head football coach Quincy Patrick. But it felt good for the kids to see their hard work after ball games. I mean I tell everybody, man, it’s hard. Football is hard. It’s even harder when you’re losing.”
Upon the additions of a brand new scoreboard, and a brand new field house under construction on the east side of the stadium, West Harrison is breathing fresh air heading into 2023, fresh off its first-ever winning season in its 14th year as a program.
“The kids more respect in the hallways, which I’m more excited about than anything,” said Patrick.
“During class, people used to talk crazy,” said Jacobs. “They’d be like, oh, you’re fixing to lose tonight! We were like, alright, ya’ll are going to see! And showed them what happened last year, winning season.”
“Everyone in the hallways is cheering us on, getting a new facility, new scoreboard, you know we’re doing things good out here,” said West Harrison senior defensive back/wide receiver Jahmad McGowan.
In 2022, the Hurricanes ripped off three straight wins to start the year, more than the two they won the entire season before. After a loss at East Central, West Harrison was back at home against George County, and breaking the single-game school record for points scored. The Canes needed every single one in a 50-49 overtime win over the Rebels.
“Fans were going wild, fireworks popping off, touchdowns back-to-back, it was good,” said McGowan. It was a great energy.”
“That night was crazy for real,” said Jacobs. “As soon as we saw Brooks catch that touchdown right over there, it was crazy, like I’m talking about everybody was turnt. Everybody ran off onto the field, and Coach started yelling at us.”
“It definitely sparked some interest in us, and we definitely came out knowing that we could compete with anybody on the Coast,” said Skidmore.
The Canes went on to break that record in a 54-0 shutout at Long Beach, and closed out the season with a two-point win over Pearl River Central, all without star running back and former News 25 Student-Athlete of the Week Melvin Pickens, who missed his entire senior season due to injury.
But it still wasn’t enough for West Harrison to make its playoff debut, ending at 6-4 overall and 3-4 in Region 4-5A.
“It was special, but we didn’t get the result that we wanted,” said McGowan. “We wanted the playoffs, so you know we’re attacking that this year.”
“Really just motivated us to keep on going, make the playoffs this year,” said Jacobs. “Keep the train rolling, keep on going.”
The argument could certainly be made that West Harrison arrived a year early. In their return to 6A, the Hurricanes return 100 percent of their passing and rushing yards from 2022, led by senior quarterback and Wing-T general Brady Martin, surrounded by the running back trio of Javon McCalebb, Trey Harris and Jeremy Jones.
“We’re actually going to come out in five-wide every play. No, we’re actually Wing-T still.”
On the other side of the ball, West Harrison is led by Tayedeus Jacobs, Jahmad McGowan and Torrance Skidmore, who already has an offer from UAB, as well as a really good DC.
“Please put this on film, John Brown, defensive coordinator,” said Patrick. “I mean that’s the reason why our defense is going to be so good because he’s so good.”
“We’re doing something this year, just like we were last year, a lot of stops,” said Jacobs.
“We play soft, that’s unacceptable here,” said Skidmore. “You play as hard as you can, go full speed, 110 percent, and I like hitting people.”
These days, Patrick likes to keep it simple, saying it all comes down to blocking, tackling and working hard, with just one sign in the field house.
“We’re trying to come get it every day, working hard every day,” said McGowan.
“When I first started teaching I had a mentor, great mentor,” said Patrick “He’s still teaching. I think it’s year 41 for him. And he said, if you have a lot of rules in your classroom, you’ve got to enforce a lot of rules. So if you’ve got a lot of different sayings and quotes and all that, you’ve got to enforce all of those. But ours is simple. You can’t practice soft and expect to play hard.”
About 16 seniors and 15 returning starters are ready to go harder than ever, with plenty more history still left to be made off County Farm Road.
“Better players, better energy, better motivation,” said McGowan. “We’re not stopping until we go to the playoffs.”
“Trying to be the first senior team just to bring everybody to the playoffs with us,” said Jacobs. “We’re trying to go out with a bang before we leave.”
“We talk about how, yeah, we want to be able to leave a legacy here because we’re some of the first people that came in here and turned the season around,” said Skidmore. “We want to leave that on for everybody else to make sure that they go harder than we did.”
“I’m not even super excited about August the 25th,” said Patrick. “I’m excited about practice tomorrow. I’m actually excited about practice today. I mean I actually just love everything about football, then I’m going to go back and say I’m excited about our number one band, also I’m excited about our number one cheerleading squad over here, who’s back-to-back national champions, so we’ve got a great football Friday night environment, so I’m excited the football team can finally try to catch up and be on the same level as those guys.”
The Canes hit the road in Week 1 against Greene County on August 25.
