In the midst of a recession that won’t go away, when most schools are scrambling to cut costs, East Mississippi Community College committed nearly $5 million last year to build a brand-new football stadium.

    EMCC is inviting the world to watch the investment pay off Sept. 1 when the New Sullivan-Windham Field makes its debut. What makes the grand opening even more interesting: The game is a re-match between the 16th-ranked Lions, 2009 Mississippi Association of Community and Junior Colleges state football champions, and the No. 2 community college team in the country, Mississippi Gulf Coast, the 2010 MACJC state champion.

    Understandably, EMCC’s decision to build a stadium was surprising. The predictable move was to continue the college’s long-standing frugality. But EMCC President Dr. Rick Young and the Board of Trustees weren’t thinking short -term. With construction costs at an all-time low, they decided it was time to build.

    “We have 14 other community colleges in the state, not to mention four-year universities. You’ve got to realize that students don’t have to come to your school. You’ve got to make them want to – that’s free enterprise,” Young said.

    “As we looked for ways to make our college more desirable to the general public, we realized a need to re-establish a niche we had in the past, and that was through the sports program.”

    The New Sullivan-Windham Field isn’t the result of nostalgic alumni hoping to resurrect the ghost of East Mississippi coaching legend Bob “Bull” Sullivan, who produced 31 junior college All-Americans during his 16 years in Scooba during the 1950s and ’60s. With the football program on the rise under the guidance of fourth-year head coach Buddy Stephens, who led the Lions to a state title in his second season, it was time for EMCC to build a new house as a marketing tool to compete against stadiums at other community colleges. And in many cases, to stack up next to stadiums at high schools in the district whose “protected list” athletes must attend EMCC to participate in Mississippi community college athletics.

    “Whether you like it or not, sports is what people want,” Young said. “We’re using sports to keep young people in school. To give our campus an identity that makes it an exciting place to be, a place people want to be identified with.”

    The desire to be part of a sports program – as an athlete, a fan, a band member or a cheerleader – applies to both prospective students and their parents. And it’s winning seasons, not big football stadiums, that attract the best athletes.

    “It’s a gold nugget for recruiting,” Stephens said. “It says everything you get here is quality.”

    Stephens now has an arsenal of previously unavailable enticements at his fingertips. There’s the  5,000-seat capacity, the EnviroTurf artificial field surface, the 11-foot by 15-foot “Juco-tron” video screen, new locker rooms and a double-decker press box – all in addition to the school’s historic and recent football legacy. Bull Sullivan ran an All-American factory, but Stephens can lure the state’s best players to Scooba with a new field. And it doesn’t hurt that, on average, more than 20 EMCC players receive football scholarships to four-year universities each season.

    Those athletes who made stops in Scooba on their way to bachelor’s degrees are EMCC’s loudest cheerleaders, ambassadors for a program that teaches more than tackling.

    Gabe Poe of Pheba, a 2008 West Oktibbeha High School and 2010 EMCC graduate, is starting at middle linebacker at the University of West Alabama.

    “As a person, EMCC taught me accountability. I had to be on time for meetings and practice,” Poe said.

    “After you leave your parents’ house, you have to do it on your own. I’ve got even more places to be now … sports medicine treatment at 6:30 a.m. to get yourself healthy, then you’ve got to get breakfast so you’re full and not unfocused in class. It all correlates.”

    Stephens recognizes past players are EMCC’s future alumni base, but while they’re in Scooba, they’re kids. And in lieu of parents, Stephens and his staff make sure every player eats breakfast, attends class and checks in before curfew.

    T.J. Ballou, a 2007 graduate of Northeast Lauderdale High School and current starting cornerback for the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said the parent-child dynamic at EMCC is real.

    “I had a lot of personal things going on in my life at that time. Being in that environment with the coaches, they talked to me a lot about their experience in college. Coach Marcus Wood told me, ‘You’re going to suffer through pain in life. I’d rather you suffer through the pain of discipline than the pain of disappointment,’” Ballou said.

    Apart from recruiting, the stadium also breeds benefits like more traffic on campus. A jamboree in May brought 20 high schools to Scooba along with scouts from Division I schools. The field could also host high school playoff games if a school in EMCC’s district gets rained out.

    Kemper County, which already benefits from EMCC as a draw for economic development, suddenly has a new community rendezvous. If a weather disaster strikes, Sullivan-Windham Field could accommodate a staging area for emergency workers. Or it could play a neighborly role, like hosting movie nights on the Juco-tron.

    Young said people are talking about EMCC: “People who had forgotten about us have now been reminded we’re one of the leading community colleges in the state. We’re moving ever upward with the goal of being on top.”

    To reach the top, EMCC has a grocery list of new facilities to build. The stadium was actually the second item scratched off in April of this year, after the Buster and Jeanie Orr Center for Christian Activity was added to the Chapel in the Pines.

    Currently, a new student union and a parking lot adjacent to the football stadium are under construction on the Scooba campus. Work has begun on a barn for the EMCC rodeo program, which will be followed by a lineman education facility. A new men’s dorm is in the planning stages, and the college has launched $2 million capital fund-raising campaign for an expansion of Keyes Currie Coliseum.

    At the Golden Triangle campus, a parking lot renovation, a building for the Workforce Development program, a student union and a regional corporate service/allied health center are all in the works.

    For ticket information about the Sept. 1 grand opening of the New Sullivan-Windham Field, call (662) 476-5063.