Previewing Biloxi Football Coach Bobby Hall’s HOF induction

Only two coaches in the history of high school football in the Magnolia State have more than 300 career wins. One of them currently resides at Biloxi. Now in his 40th season of coaching, Bobby Hall is about to solidify his legacy as the next in line for the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame.
Even after four decades of coaching, Bobby Hall’s trip down memory lane still feels like it was just yesterday. And as one of the best to ever put on a headset, Coach Hall to the hall certainly has a nice ring to it. “There’s some great coaches that’s been inducted. I’m absolutely flattered.”
Come Friday, Hall will finally join the ranks of those other great coaches with a smile and a heavy heart. “Well, I’m a very emotional person. I’m easy to laughter and easy to tears. I’m being really guarded about how my emotions will be because I want it to be a very, very happy time.”
Happiness has been a theme throughout Hall’s career. His resume features 307 wins and four state championships across 34 seasons of being a high school coach. 40 years and 11 stops later, he still hasn’t lost his edge. “God gave me a great talent and I have great passion. And God gave me that great talent, and I’m very blessed because of that because everybody doesn’t have passion and I’ve still got just as much passion as I had when I was a young guy. I still love the kids and I love the coaching of football. I think high school football is the last frontier.”
What Hall means by the last frontier has everything to do with winning on and off the field. “Man, this is the last place where we can teach young men life lessons such as how to be on time, how to respect authority, how to work with others towards a goal and all those kinds of things because society is not really good at that right now, but in football, we can still do it.”
(“And what does that mean to you to kind of be the gatekeeper, so to speak, in something that important?’) “Well, I just think that real coaches are no more than guardian angels that God put on this Earth to take care of these kids and we just get to coach a great game while we’re doing it.”
Although Hall has only spent two full seasons at Biloxi, his coaching journey has run a course that makes it only fitting he enters the Hall of Fame as an Indian. “Here’s something ironic – my first job, I graduated from Ole Miss on a Sunday. I went to work for Itawamba Agricultural High School on a Monday and they were the Indians and now this is going to more than likely be my last job and we’re the Indians again.”
Friday’s Hall of Fame banquet will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Jackson at 6 p.m.