Oct0ber 4, 2019
East Central Community College alumnus and former Warrior football standout Barry Irons of Philadelphia will join an esteemed group of former athletes when he is inducted into the college’s Athletic Hall of Fame during Homecoming activities scheduled Thursday, Oct. 17, on the Decatur campus.
When notified of his selection, Irons said, “I was shocked and humbled when Dr. (Billy) Stewart called me. I am just so honored to be selected a member of the ECCC Athletic Hall of Fame. I will always cherish my memories of my time at East Central and all the experiences I have had with the college since.”
Irons was a standout player and team captain at Philadelphia High School before signing on to play for Coach Ken Pouncey’s East Central squad in 1967.
“The older I get, the more I appreciate my EC years. Not only do I cherish my football career and those memories, but my fellow classmates as well, and just the total experience of meeting all my fellow students and getting to know them. I still run into them and talk about the memories of our time at East Central.”
Irons said playing junior college football was an experience he’ll never forget. He said it was tough, just like he had always heard it would be.
“It was an experience just showing up that first season. I had always heard it was tough and I wondered if I could do it. Coach Pouncey and Coach (Billy) Baucum were in their first season at East Central and they were young and tough. We had a good first year. We got beat by Perk (now Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College) pretty bad that first game, but we ended strong with a 7-3 record overall.”
Irons was the starting center as an ECCC freshman and during his sophomore season played both center and nose guard.
“During my sophomore year, Coach Pouncey put three freshman players in my room. I was Student Body President at the time and was having to go to meetings between practices so I wasn’t really able to get to know them well. After about three or four days of two and three a day practices, I came back to our room to find that all three of them had packed up and left!”
He said they started with about 70 players during summer practice and ended up with 29 during the regular season.
“You had to really want to play junior college football!” he added.
Irons also remembers the time during football practice when he had to jump a seven-foot gate to get to a doctor’s appointment.
“I had a knee injury and was not dressed out, but I was at practice and had to leave and go see Dr. (Austin) Boggan to drain fluid from my knee. Coach Pouncey had locked the gates because he was a little upset from our last game. When it came time for me to leave, the manager told Coach the gates were still locked and he told us to climb over the gates to get out. And we did it without hesitation! I recovered and was able to play in the next game,” he said.
He was an Honorable Mention All-State selection following the 1968 season and played in the Mississippi Junior College All-Star game under legendary East Mississippi coach “Bull” Sullivan.
When asked about playing for Coach Sullivan, Irons said, “We had a secret full scrimmage one morning about 4 a.m. with a heavy frost on the ground. My how times have changed! You couldn’t get away with that these days. I was the long snapper on offense and played defensive end and defensive tackle. I remember walking out onto the field before the game and my legs felt like they weighed 200 pounds each. We were all so excited. But after the game got started, we all settled down and had a great time.”
Irons was not only a leader on the football field, but also served as president of his freshman class at East Central and as Student Body Association President during his sophomore year. He was a freshman class favorite, received the Citizenship Award and also was a member of the Engineering Club.
“I appreciate my teachers, coaches, and the administration I had the pleasure of working with on several occasions,” Irons said. “Mr. Ovid Vickers encouraged me to run for SBA president. Coach Pouncey and Coach Baucum worked with me to be a better football player. Frank Rives, Frank Cross, Tommy Thrash, Pace Guthrie, George Mason, George Abraham, Alfred Deaton and many others challenged us to be better students and will remain in my memory forever. Dr. Charles Wright, Dean Denver Brackeen, Dean Jim Lightsey, and Dean Clayton Blount all helped me a lot in my duties as SBA president.”
Following his graduation from East Central, although he had a couple of senior colleges show interest in him playing football at the next level, Irons decided to forego an athletic career to concentrate on a degree in engineering at Mississippi State University.
He and his friend, Sam Nowell, who also attended East Central and played on the basketball team, were roommates and engineering majors at MSU and where Irons remained involved in the game he loved as a member of an intramural football team.
However, he would soon have to completely give up playing the sport he loved, even intramurals, as just a few weeks into the semester after having numerous severe nosebleeds, Irons was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his nasal cavity that required surgery and cobalt radiation treatment.
“It was a difficult time in my life for sure,” he said. “Football impacts people in different ways. I learned to play on a team. I got really close to the players and formed some great relationships. Football made men out of us. And I learned that when tough things come along, I can just tell myself, ‘I played junior college football. I can do anything!’”
And he did. Irons beat the cancer and returned to MSU to complete his degree in Industrial Technology in 1972. He began his career with AMBAC Industries in Columbus as a methods engineer. He then went to work for Rockwell International in Tupelo where he served in various capacities including industrial engineer, shift supervisor, consulting industrial engineer and operations manager. He was chief industrial engineer with Eljer Plumbingware in Tupelo before returning to Philadelphia in 1992 to take an engineering position with Chahta Enterprises in Choctaw. He purchased Philadelphia Dry Cleaners in 1994 and was owner and president until his retirement in 2012.
After a year and half of retirement during which time Irons said he was able to “catch up on his sleep,” he went back to work part-time as a courier for The Citizens Bank of Philadelphia. These days he is officially retired and belongs to the coffee club at Stribling Drug Store, where he says he and Nowell and a few other retired folks “work out all the world’s problems.”
Irons remains an active member of the East Central Community College family as a lifetime member of the Alumni Association and a member of the Warrior Club. He most recently served as a team captain for the fundraising campaign to build Warrior Hall, a new football operations center located near the north end zone of Bailey Stadium, and was instrumental in the project’s completion. In addition, he has made various contributions to the scholarship fund at East Central.
Active in his community, Irons also supports the Philadelphia High School Athletic Booster Club and the Mississippi State University Alumni Association and Bulldog Club. He is a past member and officer of the American Institute of Industrial Engineers, and a past board member of the Philadelphia Chamber and Main Street Association.
He currently attends First United Methodist Church in Philadelphia where he serves as an usher captain and has served on the missions auction team, finance team, and staff parish committee.
Irons is married to the former Betty Margaret Stribling of Philadelphia and they have three children: Jenny Irons and husband, George Hobor, of Maplewood, N.J.; Dan Irons and wife, Karen Bretz, of Westerville, Ohio; and Mary Margaret Irons Massey and husband Will of Louisville. They have four granddaughters.
