One of T.R. Miller’s six state championship teams will be honored Friday night when the Tigers host Cottage Hill.
Twenty years after winning T.R. Miller’s fourth state championship in football, the 1994 T.R. Miller Tiger squad will be honored and recognized Friday.
Also the team will have a special championship celebration Saturday, Sept. 13.
The Tiger team went 15-0 — T.R. Miller’s only 15-0 team — defeating Cleburne County 27-6 to win the state championship. The 1994 team scored 453 total points that season for an average of 30.2 points a game while allowing only 102 total points for 6.8 a game.
The team pitched five shutouts and allowed no more than 15 points to one opponent. The Tigers held 10 opponents to eight points or less.
The T.R. Miller Quarterback Club will sponsor the reunion on Friday and Saturday. The team will have a tailgate before the game and will be recognized at the game.
A luncheon will be held Saturday, Sept. 13, and a special highlight video will be made of the team.
The 1994 season was head coach Jamie Riggs’ sixth year at T.R. Miller and his second state championship team after the 1991 team won it all a few years prior.
“The plans are to have a tailgate for them Friday at 5:30 p.m.,” Riggs said. “We are going to honor them with a pregame ceremony at 6:30 p.m. They will all be on the field and called out and we will share some information about the team. On Saturday, we will meet at 11 a.m. and let them tour the field house and the new part of the school.”
Riggs said lunch will be served along with a little program where some team members will speak.
“We will show a video of the championship team and it will have player interviews, footage from the season, and a story about the season,” Riggs said. “We will have a DVD made for all of them and we hope they just enjoy being together again.”
Riggs said the 1994 T.R. Miller team was a very unusual team and they are the only T.R. Miller team to go 15-0.
“To go 15-0 is spectacular,” Riggs said. “This team was one of the smallest we had. None but maybe two or three were over 200 pounds. They were really fast and they played really well together. They all got along great and that possibly led to the success of the team.”
The team defeated Cleburne County 27-6 in Brewton for the state championship.
“Cleburne County was the best 4A team that year and they came out of the north,” Riggs said. “Everyone was waiting on us to lose. In the north, you also had Deshler, but CC had a great defense. We played about as good of a championship game you could play. We did well on offense, defense and in the kicking game that night. We made some big plays in the first half with one being a John Hart pass to Jason Madden and another being a run of Bennie Campbell’s.”
Riggs said Cleburne County scored on their first offensive possession of the night and many thought that would be all they needed to win because of their defense.
“Some said once they scored first, it was death for the other team,” We went back and scored and scored and basically in the fourth quarter, we just ran out the clock. It was a great game.”
Riggs said he expects many players and others from that team, along with cheerleaders, to come back.
“I think we should have a good number of folks to come back,” Riggs said. “The sophomores on that team went on to win 41 games in three years. That is pretty good. I hope we have a lot come back and I hope they can all enjoy themselves.”