Grenada Ends Season at State Championship Game

After the play clock stopped on the Grenada Chargers’ first-ever appearance at the state football championships on Dec. 1, first-year head coach Michael Fair took his team aside, and under the lights of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium at the University of Mississippi, he told them three things.

The players had just completed a monumental season. Their 15-game run included three playoff victories against formidable opponents, ending with a heartbreaking loss to the 6A South-Half victors West Jones for the title of 6A State Champs. It was the most grueling four quarters of football these players had seen all season. Most were muddy head-to-toe, and with tears in their eyes, they listened to the coach who’d led them there. 

The first thing Fair told them: “Life is about how you respond to adversity. It defines what kind of man you are. Times like this, that’s when your character is revealed.”

It’s a lesson the team had been learning all season. Their first loss came early, only their second game. Old rivals and neighbors Winona slipped by with a 32-26 victory at home. “That could have broken a lot of teams, but we bounced back the next week and beat a good Oxford team,” Fair said.

The Chargers’ second loss came at home against a stout Bartlett, Tenn. team, but they rebounded the next week and won a dogfight at home against DeSoto Central. 

The season’s third loss, again at home, was the final game of the regular season. South Panola won in a game that would decide the top team in the district. “We put a lot on that game,” Fair recalled. “We felt like we had a good plan, went out there, and got beat handily. We had zero momentum going into the playoffs because we lost the last game of the season.”

But the team bounced back in a way that revealed their true character. “There was no panic,” said Fair. “It was just, Here’s what we messed up on. We had more to do with the outcome than our opponent. Let’s fix us, and let’s go to work. After that, it was different. There was something in their eyes during that playoff run that was pretty special. You knew they were going to state no matter what it took.”

The second thing Fair told his players out on the football field that night, with the West Jones team celebrating their championship in the background: “When anyone ever asks me how we got here, I’m always going to say, ‘It was the class of 2024.’” 

Fair believes they wouldn’t have made it to the state championships without the twenty-plus senior players who adopted his philosophy.

This year’s senior class was led by a slate of standouts all over the field. Jekerious Williams, the speedy and elusive cornerback, proved to be versatile in various position groups and made astounding plays almost every week. Preston Smith, the all-star tackle, showed his younger O-linemen how to keep fighting in the trenches week after week. Martrevion Austin, one of the smaller defensive players, always turned up precisely when and where he was needed. Aaron Travis, the imposing defensive lineman, already committed to D-1 college football, was relegated to the sideline on crutches for the championship game but wasn’t moping, just cheering on his teammates. Charlie Fair, the understated, cool-under-pressure quarterback and son of Fair, knew his father’s playbook and helped galvanize the team under the new playing style.

“They were so loyal and hard-working, and they’ve been great leaders for our program,” Fair said. “They bought into what we were doing and took this program to places a lot of folks didn’t think we could reach.”

If no one else could have predicted the Chargers would end up at the state championship game, the players believed it themselves. All season, they reminded each other of the goal and took joy in proving their doubters wrong.

Each week as the team racked up convincing wins, the bleachers were a little more crowded with enthusiastic students and community members, especially at the away games.

The day after Thanksgiving, when the Chargers met South Panola for a rematch to clinch the North-Half division, the crowd of Grenada supporters that descended on Batesville was as grand as any home game. Students had been out of school all week, but the band, cheerleaders, and NJROTC all donned their uniforms and came out to rally the team.

“I’m proud of our boys and what they were able to accomplish on those Friday nights, but I’m just as proud of this community,” Fair said. “I feel like people realize we can win at a high level. The atmosphere these last couple of weeks has been unbelievable — first at North-Half in Batesville and then in Oxford at the state championship. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Friday night at Vaught-Hemingway saw the largest Charger crowd of the season and perhaps in history. A sea of white-clad supporters — the football boosters urged fans to wear white in a show of unified support for the Chargers — filled the visitor’s side of the college stadium and roared their support.

Fair said he and his coaches had prepared his players throughout the week leading up to the championship game. “It’s an unbelievable experience,” he said. “We told them, if you go out there in pregame and feed off that crowd, you could be worn out before the game even starts. We needed our kids to manage those emotions. But we also wanted them to soak it in because the majority of kids that play this sport will never experience what our kids were able to experience: a huge stadium with a whole town and community behind their back, an SEC announcer calling our kids' names against a good opponent. That’s pretty good stuff for a high school kid.”

The hard-fought game was tied at 3 by halftime but got away from Grenada in the third quarter as West Jones’ elite defense thwarted the Chargers’ scrappy offense. The final score was 23-3, but Chargers fought for every down until the bitter end.

After the game, the third thing Fair told his players was this: “You young guys, I hope you got a good taste of this. I hope you heard them playing ‘We Are the Champions’ and saw them giving that big gold ball to another team across the field. And I hope it motivates you to get back here.”

Despite so many good senior players leaving after this year, the team will retain plenty of top talent, all itching to go back to state. “The 2024 season starts Monday,” Fair said. “And we may be disappointed right now, but when I look at that crowd that came out to support us, I want to tell them, Hang in there. It’s coming.’”

In addition to a resilient team of football players and a top-shelf coaching staff — “some of the best men I’ve ever worked with” — Fair credits the Chargers’ successful season to a perfect storm of support from the school and community. 

“We feel like we’re on the front end of a really successful era in Grenada football, and in my experience, several factors go into that,” he said. “You’ve got to have a group of players that are willing to sacrifice and work hard and that have talent. That’s here. You’ve got to have administration and teachers that support athletics and football and hold these guys to a high standard in the classroom. That’s here. And you’ve gotta have community support. That’s evident.”

Fair added that the support of the student body, including other extracurricular groups and sports, was exceptional. “Head coaches in other sports are without several of their players because this football season has run long,” he said. “Every one of those coaches are following this football program and supporting them like you wouldn’t believe, even when, selfishly, they could be pulling against us so they could get their kids back. But that’s not what this place is about, and that’s not the type of people we have here.”

Fair, who has coached successful football programs in Lafayette, Senatobia, and Greenwood, said that everywhere he has worked, when the football team does well, you see it in the hallways of the school. “Football and all the other extracurricular activities and our academic success — it’s all woven together. It brings a spotlight to what we have here.”

The coach acknowledges that expectations for next season will be higher following Grenada’s historic season. “I’m okay with that,” Fair said. “We all need to be in a place where we’re expected to be successful.”