By Billy Watkins
On an Ole Miss football team filled with star players, a team that never lost or tied a game, Louis Guy stood out.
In the Rebels’ 1962 perfect season — the only one in school history — Guy was elected Mr. Ole Miss by the student body and co-captain of the team by his teammates.
As a running back, he led the Rebels in touchdowns and receptions. In the Sugar Bowl, his 33-yard TD catch in the first half put Ole Miss ahead for good in a 17-13 victory over Arkansas — the final test during a dream season.
As a defensive back, who was named third-team All-American, Guy’s interception return of 100-plus yards for a touchdown halted a Tennessee drive in the fourth quarter and sealed a 19-6 victory in Knoxville.
When former Mississippi governor Ray Mabus was the Secretary of the Navy, one of the few items on his desk was Guy’s chinstrap that a 14-year-old Mabus asked him for after a game in ’62.
Guy, 85, will be inducted Saturday night into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame for his stellar season and career, during which he was part of only two losses and one tie from 1960-62.
One other note: Guy’s current hole-in-one count stands at seven, or three more than the world’s top-rated golfers — Scotty Scheffler and Rory McIlroy — have combined for on the PGA Tour.
“It’s hard to express how happy I am for Louis” said Glynn Griffing, the starting quarterback on the 1962 team and a first-team All-American. “I think it’s long overdue.”
Guy is suffering from dementia.
“His short-term memory is not good, but his long-term memory is pretty decent,” said his son, Sean Guy, an attorney in Ridgeland. “He understands that he’s going into the Hall of Fame. When the people came over and told him he had been voted in, tears welled up in his eyes.”
Due to a broken hip a few weeks ago, Guy will be in a wheelchair. Beside him will be his wife, Gayle; Sean and his two siblings, Stacy and Nicole; and nine of 10 grandchildren. Also there to celebrate with him will be representatives from Ole Miss and some former teammates from the 10-0 season.
During a 2012 reunion in Oxford to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the perfect season, Guy was asked: How did the ’62 team manage to win every game?
He answered: ““In my opinion, it was the coaching staff and the people they surrounded us with to keep us focused on what we were actually here to do. I don’t think any of us — maybe a few — had real aspirations that we would go any further in football. Coach Vaught would always preach it to us, we’re here to get an education … he didn’t let us have cars so we didn’t traipse up to The Square too much. We learned to entertain ourselves around the (athletic) dorm, so we became a close-knit group of people that actually really loved each other.”
Of course, the team had to handle a major distraction two games into the season. On Monday, Oct. 1,, James Meredith became the first black student at Ole Miss. In the middle of the civil rights era, the campus became a site of violence and turmoil. The entire nation was watching.
The coaches and players were helpless. Suddenly, they didn’t know if that week’s game against Houston would be canceled or if the University might close and the rest of the season scrubbed.
Somehow, they kept their focus through it all.
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Griffing, who has been in the Hall of Fame since 2002, said Guy has never been one to seek attention or brag about his accomplishments.
“He’s a humble person,” Griffing said. “But he meant so much as a teammate. He was always somebody you could depend on.
“We didn’t have pure wide receivers. In our offense, we had to put (wingbacks and running backs) in motion to become wide receivers. Louis was a really good running back, really fast. But we could motion him out and he could find a way to get open. And I knew if I put it anywhere near him, he would come down with it. For a quarterback, having someone like that means everything.”
The folks in southwest Mississippi saw Guy’s athletic ability before the rest of us. He grew up in McComb where his parents ran a country store and his dad also delivered Coca-Cola.
The area was blessed with another standout athlete — Brookhaven’s Lance Alworth, now a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He and Guy battled each other in baseball, football, basketball and track for years.
Mac Gordon, a longtime sports writer and native of the McComb area, recalled watching the two race in a 100-yard dash. “It was so close, I don’t even remember who won,” Gordon said.
Both were bound for Ole Miss after high school, but Alworth got married and Vaught didn’t sign married players. Alworth wound up at Arkansas. Their teams faced off in 1960 and ’61. Ole Miss prevailed in both games.
After the ’62 season, Guy was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the third round of the NFL draft. His rights were traded to the New York Giants, who acquired him to play defense.
Griffing was also with the Giants, taken in the fourth round. The former Rebels rented an apartment together before preseason camp.
“We had an exhibition game in Green Bay but Louis hurt his shoulder the week before and was going to be out for a while,” Griffing recalled. “Louis asked Coach (Allie) Sherman if he could return home for a couple of days since he wouldn’t be making the trip, and Coach Sherman said OK.
“Before our first practice after the Green Bay game, one of our teammates said, ‘Hey, what do you think about Louis getting married over the weekend.?’ I told him there was no way that happened. But sure enough it did,. I quickly decided I’d better find another apartment.”
Guy came back from the injury in time to play the final five games of the ’63 season, but the Giants released him during training camp the next summer. He signed with the AFL’s Oakland Raiders and played in six games.
“Dad told me that he was on the team bus coming from a game, and he was trying to decide if he really wanted to keep pursuing football,” Sean said. “He said a veteran guy in his ’30s told him, ‘When I leave football, I don’t have any kind of job or career to go to. If you have anything to go to, do it now.’ Dad said it was one of the best pieces of advice he ever received.”
Guy enrolled in dental school at the University of Tennessee. He took care of people’s teeth in the Jackson area for years.
“I think a lot about that decision he made,” Sean said. “He left football, which had to be hard for him to do, to build a career so he could provide for his future family — me and my two sisters.”
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The Guy family has many of Louis’ game films from Ole Miss. But watching them is not where Sean learned of his dad’s true impact.
“We had a house in Oxford along with Dad’ great friend (fullback) Billy Ray Adams and his family,” Sean said. “We never missed a game when I was growing up. We’d go into the field house and the locker room after games. Everybody loved Dad. When we went to a restaurant, everybody wanted to talk to Dad. I suddenly realized that I was the son of this famous guy, who to me was just Dad. It made me so proud to watch how much people loved him,
“And now he’s going into the Hall of Fame, and I’m just happy it happened before Dad died or couldn’t appreciate the moment. Nobody had ever been to college in his family. The (Philadelphia) Phillies offered him a baseball contract out of high school, but he turned it down. He wanted a college education.
“And I’ll never forget the day I graduated law school. Dad had always made me know he was proud of me, but there was something special about him telling me on that day. All the stuff he’d done in his life and career and he’s congratulating me. My Dad really is my hero.”
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ALONG WITH LOUIS GUY, SIX OTHERS WILL BE INDUCTED INTO THE MISS. SPORTS HALL OF FAME SATURDAY NIGHT.
*Glen Collins, an All-American defensive tackle and first-round NFL draft choice.
*Michael Haddix, a two-time All-SEC running back at Mississippi State and the eighth overall pick in the 1983 NFL draft.
*Bobby Halford, who won more than 1,300 games as baseball coach at William Carey.
*Ronnie Mayers, former coach and athletic director at Delta State whose swimming and diving teams won 11 conference titles.
*Johnny Parker, a pioneer in strength and conditioning at Ole Miss and later in the NFL, where his teams won three Super Bowls.
*Brittney Reese, a former Ole Miss star and an Olympic gold medal winner in the long jump.
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