BY ANDY LEE WHITE
FOR THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA —
It was 50 years ago today;
The first varsity football game between Lee Academy and Scott Preparatory School
Fifty years ago on Oct. 5, 1973, the Lee Academy Generals took on the Scott Prep Patriots in the first ever meeting between their varsity football teams. It was a historic moment in their storied rivalry, having played against each other in basketball but never football. If you had asked any of the players or coaches on either team that night if they could ever imagine the two schools eventually combining into one powerhouse, not one single player or coach could have predicted the future for these two rival schools.
The Lee-Scott Academy Warriors of Auburn have been a powerhouse in varsity football for the last few years with a storied history of state championships, most recently winning the AISA State Football Championship in 2022. Long before LSA was a consistent contender for state titles, its namesakes were both contenders in their own right. In 1981, the Lee Academy Generals of Auburn and the Scott Preparatory School Patriots of Opelika merged to form Lee-Scott Academy. Before the merger, Lee Academy played ten years of varsity football from 1972-81, winning a state championship in 1975, and SPS played eleven years of varsity football from 1971-1981, winning a state championship in 1977.
Lee Academy opened its doors to students in 1967 and SPS followed in 1970. The schools had played against each other in basketball since the first year SPS was in operation, but until 1973 there hadn’t been a varsity football game between these two intense inner Lee County rivals. Lee Academy was in only its second year of varsity football, having gone 3-7 in its initial 1972 season under coach Chuck Barber. SPS was in its third year of varsity football, fielding an impressive 9-1 record its first season in 1971 under coach Bob Boothe and a 5-5 record in 1972 under coach Ron Webster.
SPS hired veteran coach Wayne Proffitt over the summer of 1973 and had great expectations for him to bring the same success he had experienced at his previous school in southwest Georgia, where he had recently won a state championship in both football and basketball. He would inherit a team with 29 players and only three seniors. Lee Academy’s second year 26-year-old coach, Chuck Barber, had 24 players on his roster, six of them seniors.
The Aug. 17, 1973, announcement that the two schools would finally meet on the gridiron was covered in a half page article in the local paper, mentioning that both schools had to cancel games in order to clear a spot on their schedules for each other. Even though they were both small private schools, the intensity of the rivalry was staggering. Several players from both teams knew each other from prior youth sports teams and three of Scott Prep’s players had transferred from Lee to Scott over the past couple of years. Those transfers would be valuable to SPS with none more so than senior workhorse for the Patriot offense, Boykin Smith.
The summer before his junior year in 1972, when Smith left Lee Academy bound for Scott Prep, he also left behind one of his all-time best friends and fellow teammate, Ricky Dorris. The next time the two would meet again on a football field would be a year and a half later when on Oct. 5, 1973, the undefeated Lee Academy Generals visited the Scott Prep Patriots at Scott’s home field in Opelika (where West Forrest Intermediate School now exists on Waverly Parkway).
Lee Academy came into the game undefeated, riding a four game win streak, and ranked sixth in the state’s private school rankings. Dorris, the Generals superstar running back, entered the game leading the state in rushing yards, having already had games of 195, 188, 314 and 97 yards for a 198.5 yards per game average. Dorris had finished as the third leading rusher in the state the previous year. Scott Prep entered the game ranked twelfth in the state with a 3-1-1 record having just upset undefeated Dixie Academy the week before, when Smith romped for 178 yards rushing.
The level of Lee Academy’s competition in its first four games of 1973 was considered questionable by Scott Prep, as the Patriots felt like they had already faced tougher opponents than Lee, were a better team overall and had larger players at most every position. Barber knew his team was grossly undersized, that the Patriots would be well coached and that his star running back, Dorris, would probably be double or triple covered everywhere he stepped during the game.
On the night of that first historic meeting between Lee County’s two elite private schools, Lee Academy’s Barber made the first of two calls that would change the tone of the game before the two teams even saw each other. The first call wasn’t actually a play call, but more of a psychological mind game. Barber, knowing that Scott Prep was a much more physical team than his and working off the premise that Scott might even be expecting Lee Academy to be somewhat intimidated by them, didn’t have his team arrive at the game until fifteen minutes before kickoff. Lee Academy had warmed up in Auburn at their school before riding to Scott Prep’s home field in Opelika, hoping to lull the Patriots into thinking they might be a no-show. Barber didn’t even tell the parents of his players what he was doing. Everyone at the game that night wondered if the Generals were going to show up until finally, fifteen minutes before kickoff, the Lee Academy bus rolled in and parked behind the bleachers on its side of the field.
Barber remembers pulling up in the team bus and seeing Scott Prep’s players standing on the field with steam coming off their bodies after having already warmed up and were waiting to see if their opponents were going to show. All 24 Lee Academy players exited the bus, walked to the sideline, and then all 24 walked to midfield as team captains. Scott Prep sent out three captains, Boykin Smith was one of them. Lee Academy won the toss and chose to receive. Barber was ready for his second pre-kickoff call; a masterful kickoff return he thought would work against the Patriots after having viewed game film of their kick coverage.
Scott Prep kicked off and Dorris caught the ball at his own 16-yard line. Barber had called a cross block on the kickoff with blockers crossing from one side of the field clear across to the opposite side to open up an alley down the middle of the field. The return setup worked perfectly as Dorris raced untouched 84 yards down the middle of the field for a touchdown on the opening kickoff. Everyone in attendance was stunned. Lee Academy had just stepped off the bus a few minutes earlier and seemingly without any warm-ups, had just scored the first time they touched the ball. Scott Prep realized that this young coach and his undersized team had come to play.
SPS did exactly as Barber thought it was going to do that night; it had two players follow Dorris everywhere he went during the game. Barber threw Scott’s defense off with a lot of pre-snap motion and some creative play calling. Keying on Dorris limited him to just 34 yards on 17 carries for the game, well below his average, but he connected on a timely 44-yard halfback pass, had more than 100 return yards and scored two touchdowns.
Smith was the machine for Scott Prep in that first meeting between the two schools picking up 181 yards in 35 carries and scoring a TD, along with intercepting a pass and running it back 45 yards to the one before taking it in for a touchdown on the next play.
The game was a slugfest with Lee Academy losing a fumble that killed a potential scoring drive deep in SPS’s territory, and with Scott Prep losing two fumbles of its own, deep in Lee’s territory. Scott’s starting junior quarterback Sam Starr, who was one of the transfers from Lee Academy to Scott Prep just a few years earlier, had his collarbone broken during the first half of the game, but continued to play. Most every play in the game had either Dorris or Smith carrying the ball, throwing the ball, catching the ball or had one of them making the tackle (often times making the tackle on each other). At one point Dorris dropped Smith for a ten-yard loss and later Smith returned the insult by intercepting a Dorris halfback pass. The game could have been billed as Dorris versus Smith.
Lee Academy pulled off the biggest upset in the history of the series between these schools that night fifty years ago, defeating the Scott Prep Patriots 21-19. The win moved Lee up to fourth in the state as its record improved to 5-0. Lee would win the next game after defeating Scott Prep making it 6-0 but then dropped the final four games. A late season forfeit for an ineligible player in a game it lost gave Lee a win back, ending the season 7-3. Scott dropped to 3-2-1 after the loss to Lee Academy and would finish the year at 5-4-1. Dorris led the state in rushing that year, picking up 1,428 yards with Springwood’s Donnie Merritt finishing a close second and Scott Prep’s Smith finishing third.
This week in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the first meeting between Lee Academy and Scott Prep, Barber hosted a “fifty year film review” at his home in Opelika with his former star Dorris and Scott Prep’s legendary running back, Smith in attendance. The original 16mm black and white film was projected, giving three of the main characters from the historic game one more chance to relive that night. The respect that Dorris has held for Barber over the years was still clearly evident as was Barber’s continued awe of Dorris’ athletic prowess as a young man. The friendship that Dorris and Smith shared together over fifty years ago that began as teammates at Lee Academy and temporarily shifted to competitive rivals (after Smith transferred to Scott Prep), still exists today. After all, they did arrive together in the same pickup truck for coach Barber’s fiftieth anniversary film showing, though Smith was quick to point out, “We should have beat Lee by thirty.” Friendships can last forever, but some rivalries never die.
Pictured below are Scott Preps and Lee’s team photo. Boykin Smith (#26) racks up yards for Scott Prep as Lee Academy’s Ricky Dorris (#40) closes in for the tackle during the first game ever played between the two schools on Oct. 5, 1973. Photo from Lee Academy’s 1975 yearbook (courtesy of Allen Samford). Lee Academy’s Ricky Dorris (40) tackles Scott Prep’s Boykin Smith (26) during the initial meeting between the two schools varsity football teams 50 years ago.
Photos originally taken by Bill Harris.
