By Mark Mangham and Mike Mangham

Centenary College (our alma mater) is reviving its football program after a 70-year absence. Centenary was initially located in Jackson, Louisiana where Centenary’s first football game was held in the fall of 1894 (129 years ago) and the team was a powerhouse. They had wins over Notre Dame, the Texas Longhorns and, yes, even LSU! They were a strong team and were feared by many opponents because they were known for playing rough, and because of that, according to the American Football Database, they were called “the Old Ironsides”. Later, to clean up their image, they selected the “Gentleman” nickname. The team continued playing until November of 1941. The football team was briefly revived in 1946 and again in the 1960s before disbanding.

In the late 70s, Mike and I played American Legion baseball games on the baseball field at Centenary and then in the early to mid-80s we went to school there and played college baseball games on that field not knowing it used to be the location of the football field back in the day! We realized it only after finding old aerial photos of that area at the Northwest Louisiana Archives at LSUS! We have since found several photos of the past Centenary football teams and just recently found these old photos in the Thurman C. Smith collection! Even though there were no dates and no names on these pictures, just looking at these photos transports you back in time! A time when the football players wore leather helmets and what looks like practically no padding! Those were some tough men! We were happy to supply these rare photos to SB magazine for this article! Hopefully, some of the readers will be able to identify the men and women in these photos.

It depends on how you want to look when it comes to figuring out how long it has been since Centenary had football. The Gents had a notable Depression-era team – perhaps most famous for playing a game with a still-record 77 punts – but folded in 1941 after not being able to find 1,200 people to give $1 per month for three years.

Tough crowd.

The school (kind of) brought it back in 1947, but the team was so bad that they had to apologize for it in the school yearbook.

In the late 1960s, there was club football, which was just a tick above what you might see on a Sunday afternoon in the park.

And as long as we are being honest here, Centenary isn’t actually officially bringing back football this year. What they are doing is playing a series of scrimmages against some Division III teams that are within driving distance in order to be prepared for the 2024 season. If records are being kept, rest assured they won’t count. The real stuff starts in ‘24.

No other coach in America would even give this a second thought, but Dawson remembers the day when the footballs he ordered came in to the athletic office. To him, that was like the national championship rings arriving at the University of Georgia.

“Then I went out and order coaching shirts with ‘Centenary Football’ written on them,” he said. 

One basic thing at a time.

“This is a unique situation because there was nothing here,” he said. “Everybody else goes into a program and there is something there to build on. Football-wise, there was nothing here.”

From there, things just began to happen. Word began to spread about Centenary Football — two words that hadn’t been put together in the same sentence for decades – as things began to fall into place.

“You need to have a sense of urgency to get to work and start laying the foundation,” Dawson said. “That’s always the pressure on every coach at every level. Those who are not involved in sports don’t really understand it.” 

There’s no doubt that the announcement of bringing football to Centenary brought about a sizable amount of skepticism. That didn’t take Dawson by surprise, but it did add to his motivation.

“For me, it wasn’t about the naysayers; it’s about doing to work,” he said. “Those people always motivate me because you educate them by showing them that you are going to do it. I learned a long time ago that your vision is your vision. It’s not somebody else’s vision. You can do big things in small places and that’s what I want to do at Centenary.”

But it was more than just getting the community to believe. Dawson had to get potential players to believe. 

What it also did was give Dawson a running start toward this season. “Most of them (from last year) are still in the program and with the influx we had from the new players this year, we’ve got about 75 players,” he said. “Every day when I see them around Gold Dome and I see them, I’m grateful. I reflect on this and think this is like Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. It’s kind of a surreal moment for me.”

The composition of the roster has not only local players but also South Louisiana, East Texas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 

“All of these guys had to step out on faith,” Dawson said. “The facilities are still being built. We are not established yet; we are still getting in things that we need just to play. But they believed in the vision and they have bought in to that and what it could be. They have believed in what we are doing and have trusted us with their future.”

“Coming to Centenary has opened my eyes to how people can truly come together and form a family, said offensive lineman Jake Morton, a Parkway product. “Never knowing each other before and starting this has given me relationships I never knew I would have. I truly have found my new family.”