Coach Ricky Black was a famed championship football coach and athletic director at Ackerman, Kosciusko, Tupelo, and Jackson Prep. He is a native of Ackerman who was an All-Choctaw Conference football player and was captain of the football and basketball teams. Ricky played baseball and football at Holmes Junior College and graduated from Mississippi State. His coaching career spans nearly 40 years and his football teams at time of MAC induction had compiled a record of 219-56-0 out of 275 games played. He led his teams to 23 titles in 27 seasons of football including state championships at Jackson Prep in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, & 2008. Coach Black was named Coach of the Year an amazing 13 times in his career. He worked as tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator at Mississippi State from 1991 to 1997. Ricky served as assistant and head coach in the Bernard Blackwell All-Star Classic in 1979 & 1980 and Head Coach in the 1997 and 1999 MSPA All-Star games. He was a two-time MAC Athletic Director of the Year in 1981 and 1989. His Tupelo athletic program received the first-ever Clarion Ledger All-Sports Award in 1988 with repeat honors in 1989, 1990,and 1991. Coach Black coached in the first statewide televised football game while at Kosciusko in the 1977 Mississippi Bowl and coached in the first ever MPSA/MHSAA football game when Jackson Prep played George County in 2001. He established the state’s first drug awareness program for high school athletes. He is a longtime member of the MAC who has served as President of the Mississippi Athletic Directors Association.