Coach Bernard Brown “Blacky” Blackwell was one of the innovative founders of the MAC who served as Executive Director from 1963 to 1991. Coach Blackwell was born in Saucier and was a three-sport letterman at Ole Miss from 1944 to 1947. He was named a football All American by the Times Picayune. He lettered for the Rebels in basketball from 1944 to 1945 and in track from 1944 to 1946. Coach Blackwell coached football at Northwest Junior College (1948-1949), West Tallahatchie High (1950-1956), Greenville High (1956-1958), Pascagoula High (1959), and at Mississippi College (1960-1972). He helped form the MAC in 1963 and served as the Executive Director of the association until his retirement in 1991. Blacky developed the format for the famed MAC Coaches Clinics which are some of the finest clinics in the U.S. He helped develop and create the Mississippi-Alabama All-Star Football and Basketball games. He served as Assistant to the President at Mississippi College from 1972 to 1976 and was National Director of Alumni Affairs at MC from 1976 to 1993. Coach Blackwell received the acclaimed Dwight Keith Award from the National High School Athletic Coaches Association in 1987. He received the Mississippi College Order of the Golden Arrow in 1991 and was inducted into the Mississippi College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991. Coach Blackwell passed away on September 13, 1993, and was inducted posthumously into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. In 1994, the Mississippi High School All-Star Football game was named the Bernard Blackwell Classic in his honor. In 2018, Coach Blackwell was inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame.