Ernie Watson’s long and, at times, painful wait for a state championship finally ended as he guided Hattiesburg to its first state title since 1974.
In his 31-year coaching span, Watson has been victim to almost everything in the playoffs– unlikely upsets, injuries, running into hot teams, losing to powerhouses, or simply not having enough luck. Despite the never-ending and persistent woes, Watson’s team overcame a slow start and strung together a 16-game winning streak, cruised to a district championship, and finally won the ever-alluding state championship title for the first time in his career, which led to him being named the Pine Belt Sports Area Boys Basketball Coach of the Year for the 2022-23 season.
“You have to be lucky, you have to catch the right bracket, and you have to catch that team that is not hot at that time,” Watson said. “The discouraging part is not discouraging. It’s just part of what we do every year, year in and year out. We look forward to the rebuild. We look forward to the new season. Next year, it’ll be a refreshing start to see another challenge and to see if we can try and make ourselves noticeable again.”
After Hattiesburg’s last Final Four appearance in the 2020-21 season, Watson felt that was his program’s last legitimate shot for a state championship. Watson even admits that it took him until after Christmas break to feel that his team had a legitimate chance to make a run for the title.
“After the last (appearance in the Final Four), I thought that would have been it, and I thought we would never have another shot at it, but Hattiesburg has always been good to me,” Watson said. “They put me in a situation to where we can do it with our kids. We don’t have to recruit anybody. Nobody has to move in.
“I’m very fortunate to have Hattiesburg kids that are bought into Hattiesburg High School. They are not going anywhere. They are true fans and have true loyalty to the school and the city.”
According to Watson, there has never been pressure to win a state championship, but instead, his focus has been more so maintaining the winning tradition at Hattiesburg.
“It’s more of maintaining a special program, a winning program year in and year out,” Watson said. “All we had to do was maintain and get a group that was just into that championship mode. You can compete every year for a title…but it takes a special group to compete on a championship level when you have those kinds of kid that have that mindset (of) that they want to play together. It’s not about them. It’s not about me. It’s not about anything but the team.
“They bought into that. They did that. On any given night, we’ll have a different leading scorer. We’ll have somebody different lead in any category. When you have got eight or nine kids that can do that, then it makes it special for you.”
What seemed fitting and somewhat of justice for Watson was that every type of team he had lost to in previous seasons he earned victories over in this past year’s postseason run. Hattiesburg opened postseason play with a victory against rival Laurel in the district tournament. Then the Tigers earned easy wins over South Jones and West Harrison, who Hattiesburg played in the first round last season.
But in the second round, Hattiesburg avenged getting upset by Florence last season.
“We were thinking we were going to get West Jones by the way their district had fell,” Watson said. “West Jones upset (Florence), and they became the No. 2 seed and fell into our bracket. We felt pretty good. We said it was meant to be for us to get a little revenge on them. We were looking forward to that game.”
Then in the third round, the Tigers took down powerhouse Canton, who eliminated them back in the 2018-19 season.
“We had a good team then, and they beat us in the semifinals,” Watson said. “I brought that film back out and had a former player talk about that. We were ready for them. We just had to follow the game plan. I felt good on that one, too, because we had played that Friday, and they had to play Saturday, so we got the extra day to prepare for them.”
Finally, Hattiesburg faced an equally red-hot team with Picayune, who was the Tigers’ longtime district rival and had won 15 of their last 16 games. Hattiesburg had beaten Picayune 54-47 back in early November, but both teams were missing several key players due to football, so Watson stressed for his team not to dwell on that win.
“That was one of our district rivals,” Watson said. “They knew us, and we knew them. It wasn’t like we didn’t know who they were, so that made us comfortable.
“I walked in the film room and looking back at all the teams that we’ve played, had connections to all the teams in playoffs…it was a challenge all the way around. It was a memorable year because it’s something we are going to cherish.”
PREVIOUS COACH OF THE YEAR WINNERS:
2021-22: Scott Landry – FCAHS
2020-21: Laron Brumfield – Oak Grove
2019-20: Quenton Loving – North Forrest
