Perennial state prep football power Noxubee County makes its first-ever trip to the “Southern Six” this week as the Tigers head to Bay St. Louis for a meeting with home-standing St. Stanislaus in the second round of the Class 3A South State playoffs.
That game has been selected as this week’s “Kneed to See” Game of the Week sponsored by Bienville Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Center/Encore Rehab.
While it is the first-ever meeting between the two schools in South Mississippi, it’s the third-ever meeting between these two teams in football overall as an old nemesis of the Rock-A-Chaws comes calling at Brother Phillip Memorial Stadium. Noxubee County has been a school for 102 years, but this is by far the furthest south in the state that the Tigers have traveled to play a football game.
The two previous meetings between these teams came in the Class 4A state championship games in both 2014 and 2015, when the Tigers from Macon, Miss. collected their 12th and 13th state championships. They now own 15 overall state titles. St. Stanislaus, the top seed in region 8-3A, is coming of an exciting 23-20 win in the opening round of the Class 3A South State playoffs last week, while NCHS advanced after beating South Pike 35-6. The Tigers finished as the second seed behind Kemper County in Region 6-3A, losing only to top-seed Kemper County 48-46 in league play.
For over two decades now, the sports medicine staff at Bienville Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Center and Encore Rehab have been providing athletic health care to prep athletes all across South Mississippi and beyond.
The total team, which includes physicians, certified athletic trainers and support staff, is over 30 people. Dr. Jeff Noblin and Dr. Robert Terrell were the founders of the program over 20 years ago.
Dr. Noblin joined Bienville Orthopaedic Specialists in 1997 and is a co-founder and co-medical director of the Sports Medicine Center of Bienville Orthopaedic Specialists.
He completed a sports medicine fellowship with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs (1996-97), and has worked many time at the NFL combine that precedes the annual NFL draft each year.
He was an All-Southeastern Conference performer as a safety at the University of Mississippi in 1986 and honorable mention All American that same year. He earned academic All American in 1986.
He was the recipient of the SEC Scholar Athlete Award in 1986 and the recipient of NCAA and National Football Foundation Hall of Fame post-graduate scholarships that same year.
He is board certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery. He is a 1991 graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. He served as the President of the Mississippi Orthopaedic Society from 2009 to 2010.
Dr.Noblin and Dr. Terrell were the innovators of a Saturday morning sports medicine clinic in Biloxi over 20 years ago that treated pep players from across the “Southern Six” for any injury issues the morning after the games on Friday night. That service, along with many others that the physicians and staff at Bienville and Encore Rehab and still continues to this day.
