John Perkins (2000) - Southern Miss M-Club Hall of Fame

John Perkins

Induction:
2000

John Perkins was the kind of two-way tackle you wanted on your team. A player who didn’t care about individual recognition or honors and didn’t really care if the fans noticed what he was doing. What was important to John Perkins was the team. And it was that type of selfless attitude that help make him one of the school greatest linemen and helped the 1958 Southern Miss football team win a National Championship. Ask any who played with or against John Perkins and they will tell you that he was the guy you wanted in front of you or beside you when you went into battle. Because with Perkins along for the ride, you always knew you had a chance, because losing wasn’t in his vocabulary.
And during his two-year, 20-game career at Southern Miss they didn’t lose much. In fact after going 8-3 in 1957 and helping lead the team to the Tangerine Bowl, Perkins and Company ran the table in 1958 recording a perfect 9-0 record, being ranked No. 1 from start to finish in the UPI poll and winning the UPI College Division national Championship.
Perkins was from Calhoun, Miss. and played a couple of seasons at Jones Junior College then sat out a year from football, before becoming a part of Coach Thad “Pie” Vann’s football team in 1957. He was big for the time, 6-foot, 227-pounds. He was described in those days as “big, quiet, but rugged.”
The 1957 team with Perkins playing both ways won its first seven games that year and outscoring its opponents 109-6. Only three other Southern Miss teams have given up fewer points than the 62 allowed by that team and only two have ever allowed fewer than the 6.2 points per game they allowed. They recorded seven shutouts.
The 1958 team could arguably be the finest the school has ever fielded. With Perkins as one of its leaders raced to a perfect season and the championship. With Perkins blocking for the likes of Buddy Supple and Sammy Broyles, Southern Miss rushed for 286.1 yards a game, the second highest in school history and the team’s total offense average of 379.3, is the school fifth best mark. Defensively Perkins and company allowed only 83 first downs, eight touchdowns and 55 points.
Perkins was such an outstanding talent that following his junior season he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL, but elected to stay at Southern Miss for his senior campaign. The Steelers following his senior season took him again, but a severe knee injury cut his career short.
Southern Miss over the years has produced its share of linemen, who all had the same types of qualities that made them so special. A drive to excel, a work ethic that wouldn’t let them quit, and mountains of heart and dedication. Needless to say John Perkins had all of those qualities and so many more that made him the type of player to deserve induction into the Southern Miss Sports Hall of Fame.