TIFTON, Ga. — Irwin County can now trace its football program, thanks to a brand new book on the history of the program.

David Pierce has written “Our Boys: A team, a town, a history, a way of life,” a 369-page volume about football past and present in Irwin County, dating back to its origins at Ocilla High.

“I hope it’s something the community will appreciate and enjoy,” said Pierce.

Though jam packed with stories, Pierce said there were still many people he wished he could have named.

An Irwin native, Pierce has spent most of his adult life outside the land of the sweet potato. He graduated from the University of Georgia, wrote for the Camden County Tribune and Georgian and later the Albany Herald before retiring back to Ocilla.

The genesis of the project began in his youth, a time where players like Walt Sumner and Glenn Thompson were on the field.

“I had to do it,” Pierce said. “I knew I had to write about it.”

Ocilla began playing football in 1922. Few players knew much about the sport, Pierce said. Radio had scarcely began broadcasting football in 1921. Television was still 30 years away for most South Georgians.

Other high schools did have football. Fitzgerald was already on the field. Albany, Valdosta, Tifton, Waycross and Moultrie were playing.

“They knew other boys were playing,” said Pierce.

Pierce found the article announcing the formation of Ocilla’s football team in the Star. Their first game was Oct. 20, 1922, a 64-0 loss to Fitzgerald. There were not many highlights on the scoreboard for the squad that year, but soon Ocilla was considered one of the finest teams in the area.

“In 1923, they beat Fitzgerald. Suddenly, they gained notoriety.”

Pierce considers the 1928 season to be the best of Ocilla High School. The climax, he said was their victory over Albany (13-12), then one of the strongest programs in the state. “Albany had 42 boys out for football,” he said. “Ocilla barely had enough to make a team.”

“What makes this book is the rivalry with Fitzgerald,” he said. “It supersedes football.”

“They even fought for the courthouse.”

Pierce dug deep into the history of both towns. They boomed at similar times and fought for control of Irwin County’s county seat, which was then at Irwinville. Fitzgerald lost the battle, but gained their own county, Ben Hill, in 1906. Ocilla took over as county seat in 1907.

As soon as both schools developed athletic teams, the rivalry spilled from one set of courts to another. According to the Georgia High School Football Historians Association, Ocilla or Irwin County High has matched up with Fitzgerald on the football

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field 78 times. They have played every year since 1954.

Ocilla High kept playing through the 1933 season. The United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, but Pierce does not believe the financial crisis was the cause of football’s demise.

There were several reasons, he said, behind the collapse.

“After beating Albany High in 1928,” he said, “something happened.”

One of those happenings was the opening of Ocilla’s 1,000-seat gymnasium in 1932. After hosting a district tournament and the city hosting the players of all the competing teams, basketball began competing for attention.

(District tournaments, boundary lines the same as congressional districts, served the same purpose as today’s region tournaments.)

Successes became harder to find on the gridiron. Worse, Fitzgerald was winning the rivalry games in routs. The seats at the stadium, called Whelchel Field, began to rot from neglect. Football became no more.

Then the team rose from the ashes.

World War II ended in 1945. “After the war,” Pierce wrote in the book, “Ocilla went football crazy.” Play resumed in 1946 and almost immediately rose to the top. Ocilla went 6-3 in 1947.

When Ocilla and Irwinville combined high schools in 1952 to form Irwin County High, their fortunes skyrocketed. Irwin advanced to its first state final in 1953. Irwin sports a 59 percent winning record over its 67 years under the name. They have been in the playoffs in nearly half of their seasons, a remarkable feat considering the Georgia High School Association’s playoffs slots were considerably limited for most of their existence.

Irwin’s most successful season was 1975, their state championship season. Under head coach Mike Battles, the Indians went 13-0 and waffled Jefferson in the finals by a 39-13 score. Pierce details the season.

“We were like movie stars,” said Carolyn Battles, wife of Coach Battles, in a quote to close that chapter.

Pierce has information about later seasons. He said his primary goal with the book was to have a year-by-year synopsis of the team.

Besides a straight history of the teams, Pierce details other aspects of Irwin’s program, including its football fields and its wide variety of nicknames: Aces, Orphans, Terrapins and finally, Indians.

It took until 2006 for Pierce to have the opportunity to begin working on the book. He spent years going through newspaper archives, not just from the Ocilla Star, but The Tifton Gazette, Waycross Journal-Herald and many other publications. Pierce interviewed players from all eras of Irwin County football. He tracked down photos and perused old yearbooks.

The work consumed him, until he realized he needed a break; Pierce went three years without touching the project. He said he lost his focus.

But he ultimately returned to finish the book. What was left was to get “Our Boys” published. That became an adventure in itself.

The book press at the University of Georgia turned him down.

“They said it was too focused, too narrow,” said Pierce. Another company declined to print it for the same reason.

Pierce was hopeful when a friend of his told him about another publisher in Oklahoma. That company had published a book about crop dusting.

Pierce made contact. To his joy, this publisher was thrilled. So thrilled, they wanted to go to Ocilla and film games and talk to its citizens. Then it fell apart when that company faced multiple felony charges, including embezzlement and racketeering.

After taking his “lumps” with this setback, Pierce contacted other publishers. Seven or eight more turned him down. Other publishers’ rates were were quite large.

“Everybody keeps talking about ‘niche,’” said Pierce.

At last, “I get with this publisher in Tallahassee (Fla.).”

Father and Son Publishing, Inc. took on the project and were the ones to release it. The shipment was delivered to Pierce on May 24.

“Father and Son has been very helpful to me,” he said. “This is their first sports book.”

Currently, the book can be ordered via email through Pierce (dlpierce54@mchsi.com). Soon, it will be available on Amazon. From Pierce, the book costs a flat $20. Amazon will add a shipping and handling charge.

No book signings have been set up yet.

“I’m going to sell as many as I can on the streets,” he said.

Pierce is very grateful to his wife, Lucy, for her help with the project. She is thanked in the book’s acknowledgements. “Our Boys” is dedicated to everyone involved with Ocilla’s or Irwin County’s football program.

There may be another book up Pierce’s sleeve. This one, though, won’t have as much to do with football.

“I’m doing a memoir for my grandchildren,” he said, “so they know where Papa was born and raised.”