Accolades extend to all members of Pogue family

By John Howell, Publisher

During the Tuesday, Dec. 20 meeting of Batesville’s mayor and aldermen while Mayor Jerry Autrey read the city’s proclamation commending Coach Lance Pogue for his outstanding record as head football coach at South Panola, I could not help but think that the accolades extend to the entire Pogue family.
An asset often overlooked in hiring a strong football coach is that it often includes a strong wife and family.
In football-focused South Panola, the families of head coaches are probably scrutinized more closely than the families of preachers. At times I have wondered if it might be similar to living in a glass fish bowl. If it is, the Pogue family appears to have borne it well, especially with the father/son-coach/player dynamics under the same roof.
Dixie Pogue gives us a glimpse in her interview with Myra Bean in the current Batesville and Beyond magazine.
“During the season, Lance and Tyler did a really good job of not bringing practice home,” she said. “We made a conscious effort to not allow that in the house.”
At the same time the coach’s accomplishments of wins and losses are on display like successes and failures for the world to judge on a weekly basis.
Think about your job if it was hanging by how well several dozen developing male teenagers react under duress each Friday for a 15-week period.
Pogue’s teams not only did well under his leadership, but the program reached a new level by challenging adjacent states’ champions, putting the matches on the front end of the schedule. By the time South Panola hit their district portion of the schedule, the team had already been battle tested by some of the best.
Those games proved to prognosticators that South Panola was not only a state powerhouse, but a national powerhouse.
Also during the Pogue years, facilities were improved making the playing field a top notch facility to match the top notch teams that play there.
However Pogue acknowledges that the greatest reward from coaching comes from the fact that over 140 student athletes have moved on to either community colleges, four year colleges or universities with football scholarships
That’s a consideration from which we all benefit and one that makes the elite program worth every cent, for now and the future.