Coach Bobby Weathers was one of the winningest championship basketball coaches in Mississippi Community College history who started his career at Picayune High and was the longtime head coach at Perkinston Junior College which is now known as Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Born in Hattiesburg, Coach Weathers grew up in Oak Grove. He was an all-state basketball player at Oak Grove High as a senior in 1950. He then lettered in basketball at Southern Miss for four years. He coached the Southern Miss freshman team from 1955 to 1957 before working in the automobile business from 1957 to 1958. He returned to again coach the USM freshmen for the 1958-59 season. After he received his masters degree in 1959, he started his 43-year coaching career at Picayune High. He led the Maroon Tide for one season and a record of 13-10 before being named head coach for the men’s basketball program at Perkinston Junior College on July 20, 1960. Coach Weathers would remain head basketball coach for the next 42 years establishing a state and national JUCO hoops legacy. His first Bulldogs team made the state playoffs paving the way for the school’s first ever South Division and state championship the following season. Coach Weathers would guide the Bulldogs to 15 MACJC South Division crowns and 9 MACJC state championships. His 1990, 1991, and 1993 teams each won the NJCAA Region 23 title and played in the NJCAA national tournament. Coach Weathers’ 1991 team finished fourth in the nation and his 1993 squad finished fifth in the nation. In 1999, he was dubbed the “winningest active basketball coach in junior college history.” Bobby was named MACJC Coach of the Year four times and Region 23 Coach of the Year on three occasions. At the time of his retirement in 2002, Coach Weathers was the winningest active coach in the NJCAA with 910 wins and 345 losses. Along with induction into the MAC Coaches Hall of Fame, Coach Weathers has been inducted into a total of five different athletic halls of fame including: NJCAA Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994; Southern Miss Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995; Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999; and the MACJC Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. The gym on the MGCCC campus at Perkinston was renamed the Weathers/Wentzell Center in his honor on October 25, 2007. Coach Weathers passed away on September 27, 2018, at the age of 86.