The Screven County Athletic Hall of Fame will honor the members of the 1952 Region 2B football champion Gamecocks at their annual banquet Friday, Oct. 9, beginning at 4:30 p.m.
Tickets are $25 per person and anyone desiring a ticket must contact Burton Kemp Jr. (564-2920) by Monday morning. No tickets will be sold afterwards or at the banquet.
A series of candid preseason interviews with Screven County football fans in the fall of 1952 probably would not have revealed a lot of hope for an outstanding season. The team was coming off a 4-5-1 season, had a new coach in Jim Maynor and only three starters returning from that previous season. 
On the eve of the Sept. 26 season opener with Metter at Cail Field, Maynor told the Sylvania Telephone “We won’t have a world beater this season, but if we don’t make too many mistakes….”  Calling his team 8 to 12-point underdogs, he sounded like a typical coach.
With eventual Screven County Athletic Hall of Famers Herschel Evans, Cail Brinson and Billy Ansley scoring touchdowns, the Red and White won that opening game 18-0. After a 13-12 road win over Sandersville, the Roosters lost back-to-back games to Glennville and Statesboro. 
Luckily for the future of this team, both Glennville and Statesboro were in the other half of Region 2B.
After the Statesboro loss, the Gamecocks stopped Dublin and Soperton before hitting another lull with a 13-13 tie against Swainsboro and a 20-19 loss to ECI. 
Standing at 4-1-1 in their Northern Division, SCHS hosted Millen Nov. 21 in what was the first homecoming game in local history. Jackie Parker the secretary of the “S Club,” sent letters to the previous five years’ alumni. 
According to the Telephone, “a college atmosphere was the goal.”
With Jimmy Brant scoring on runs of 96, 55, 50 and 57 yards, the home team celebrated that homecoming with a 39-0 victory. Charlie Walker also added a TD and Harold Crews and Albert Smith added PATs.
At season’s end, SCHS claimed the Northern Division with a 5-1-1 record and met Glennville of the Southern Division for the 2B title. The game was played in Statesboro Nov. 28. With Maynor’s now famous “backwards” backfield and “wrong way back,” the Gamecocks “completely baffled the Glennville lads.”
The SCHS score in the 6-0 win came following a Brant interception. From the Glennville 39, Brant picked up 19 and Ansley 18 before Evans scored the game’s lone TD.
The following week the 2B champions went to Camilla to face the 1B champions in the South Georgia Championship and fell 20-0.