B.L. Moor High School

Jerry Rice nearly never played here. His mother did not want him on the football team as a freshman, thinking the sport too rough. Then, as a sophomore, he was spotted running away from an assistant principal after skipping class, and the principal, impressed by his speed, told coach Charles Davis. Rice, who grew up in Crawford, played several positions but was best at wide receiver and was an All-State selection as a senior. He went on to the San Francisco 49ers and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge — 5.9 mi
  A 48,000-acre refuge of bottomland forest and lakes in Noxubee, Oktibbeha and Winston counties, rebuilt from worn-out farmland, with red-cockaded woodpeckers, alligators and winter eagles.
• Howlin' Wolf Memorial and Blues Trail Marker — 19 mi
  A Mississippi Blues Trail marker and granite memorial on East Broad Street honoring Chester Burnett, who was born nearby in 1910 and became the Chicago blues giant Howlin' Wolf.
• Tennessee Williams Welcome Center — 20 mi
  The 1875 Episcopal rectory where Tennessee Williams was born in 1911, moved to Main Street in the 1990s and now Columbus's welcome center and a National Literary Landmark.
• Waverley Mansion — 20 mi
  A National Historic Landmark mansion above the Tombigbee River, home of a plantation family that enslaved more than a hundred people, left empty for half a century before a family restored it.

More markers nearby

• Big Joe Williams — 5.7 mi
• Oktibbeha County Blues — 10 mi
• "Cool Papa" Bell — 10 mi
• Grierson's Raid — 11 mi