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10 SOUTHERN SENIOR MAGAZINE | Winter 2020-2021 fore his senior season, and the bond be- tween him and Weathers continued to grow stronger. Weathers, after receiving his mas- ter’s degree in 1959, coached varsity bas- ketball for one year at Picayune before he took the job at Perkinston. Willis Lott, who would later be President of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, was a camp attendee as well, and ironically Lewis and Lott would cross paths at USM and later became good friends and colleagues working together in the Mississippi Association of Junior and Community Colleges for many years. Lewis, when he graduated, was 17 years old and the second youngest member of his class in 1964. He was elected student body President and Mr. Clinton High School and had achieved a high-level achieve- ment in athletics and in an array of extracurricular activities. Lewis originally signed with Hinds Junior College, but changed his mind and decided to go to USM in Hattiesburg when he heard what they were going to put in place. “Lee Floyd was the head coach at USM in his second year of his second stint of leading the men’s basketball team, and he had said he was instituting the first freshmen basket- ball team. They had hired Jeep Clark to be the coach of the team,” said Lewis. Lewis recalled that team’s roster included some guys who were really good. Names like Berlin Ladner (Hancock North Central), Don Maestri (became legendary men’s basketball coach at Troy University), Ronnie Shivers (Bassfield) and one of Lewis’ room- mates that year Frank Baker. Baker was a Meridian native who later played shortstop for the N.Y. Yankees. “Most of the players were older. Some on the varsity had been in military service for several years and were just much more ma- ture than I was at that time,” he said. At 17 years old, Lewis said he wasn’t ready for this level of basketball nor was he ready academically to be in a classroom environment that included classes held in Bennett Auditorium with 300 plus other students in a lec- ture format with a lot of subjective tests. Continued on page 12