Centenary Football Officially Returns After More Than 70 Years

Long ago, the Centenary football program was one of the most dominant in the region. In the early 1900s, the Centenary Gentlemen football program was a national college football powerhouse. Historic records say that Centenary's football program owns wins over schools like Notre Dame, LSU, Texas, Oklahoma State, Iowa, Louisville, Boston College, and Mississippi State. The Gents even beat Texas A&M, when the Aggies were nationally ranked.

But the program has been dormant since 1947...until last night. Centenary football returned to the field for their first official game in over 7 decades. NCAA Football arrived in the shadow of the Gold Dome last night, in front of thousands of fans.

Roughly 1,500 tickets were sold, to go along with students and faculty, who filled out Atkins Field for kickoff. While the team lost their first game to Hendrix, honestly the final score was irrelevant. Centenary, and Shreveport, truly won the night.

The fact that this program has risen like a phoenix and put a team on a beautiful field to play a game in Shreveport proved many wrong. The echoes of criticism were silenced as soon as toe-met-ball and an official NCAA football season started in Shreveport.

Just off Kings Highway, Shreveport got another reminder that positive things can happen in a city that seems to be constantly searching for the next negative headline to complain about. The community is stacking wins with the help of Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Amazon, and now Centenary.

The history of the Centenary football program contains moments of greatness the community can be proud of as well. Centenary's football program still holds NCAA Division 1 records in football as well. Some of which will never be broken.

The Centenary football program was also home to two All American football players. Including consensus All American Paul Geisler, and College and Pro Football Hall of Fame member Cal Hubbard. For his time as a Centenary Gent, Hubbard was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1962. After his NFL career, Hubbard was a member of the first ever class inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.

Not only that, former Centenary star Hubbard is in the Baseball Hall of Fame as well...making him the only member of both the Football and Baseball Hall of Fames.

Centenary even played in a bowl game. They played Arkansas to a tie in the Dixie Classic, which was the game that evolved into the Cotton Bowl.

Even if the Centenary team doesn't find many wins on the field this season, they've already won 2024.