NATCHEZ — The home field. The place where a team is supposed to be unbeatable. The place where a team should be most comfortable. And most importantly, the place where a team should win.

For Miss-Lou schools, their home field has proven to be just that place, a place of many successes and many memories.

Trinity Episcopal

Trinity Episcopal has one of the most unique settings in Mississippi when it comes to football stadiums.

“The Pit” as it is often referred to as, has hosted a multitude of games, many of which were playoff clashes, and has been home to many state championship teams.

The stadium has a natural bowl, surrounded by trees on one side and the school on the other. A Friday night at Trinity can quickly become a nightmare for opposing teams.

“It was just kind of the lay of the land,” Trinity historian Kent Knee said of the decision to build the stadium. “It just happened to be that natural bowl.”

It’s been The Pit since 1972. The school’s never formally dedicated the field with someone’s name.

Despite not having a proper name, The Pit is home to happy memories for many.

Knee said he can remember the times when if you weren’t at Trinity on Friday night, you were missing out on something special.

“We’ve always had good crowds,” he said. “It may be a situation where not everybody was in the stands, but then they covered the hill and watched from there. We were the place to be.”

One man that made the field a staple in Miss-Lou athletics was David King, who accumulated multiple state championships while guiding the Saints.

“It is such a unique setting,” he said. “So many people complimented the setting of the game, and it was the stage of some of the best games this town has produced. There was a ten-year span when we just didn’t lose there. It was a big home field advantage.”

King specifically recalls a 2010 team, which won the state championship, as one of the best teams to take the field.

“That was widely considered one of the best teams in the history of private school football,” he said. “We had some of the best crowds that year and a lot of people used to come and watch the games that had no affiliation with Trinity.”

Whether in 2010 or any other year, games at Trinity start the same way. The players leave the field before the game starts, making their way back to the dressing room.

“They come out and march down along the fence, through the gate, and when they go through the gate, they jump up and touch the top and come out on the field,” Knee explained.

“Coming down the fence through that gate, a lot of parents line up and clap for them as they come down — that has become a kind of ritual as they get down to the field.”

King said in all his time of coaching, he has yet to see a setting like Trinity’s.

“I haven’t seen a stadium as unique as it and I’ve coached in almost every private school setting there is,” he said. “It was a big advantage walking out there and knowing we were playing there.”

Natchez High School

Playing in the Natchez High School gym means playing in a space of legacy.

The gym bears the name of Mary Jean Irving, a 33-year coaching veteran who coached Newellton, North Natchez and Natchez high schools to state championships. She died in 2004 after a fight with cancer, and the gym was given her name in 2006.

“She was a legendary girl’s coach in the State of Mississippi,” NHS girls basketball coach Alphaka Moore said. “It is really a testimony to her work.”

The gym is one of the biggest in the area, and still has the original wood floors from when the school opened.

“The floor was just redone, so it is really a beautiful space to play in,” Moore said. “It is one of the biggest playing floors I have seen since I have been coaching.”

Because the gym is large, there’s room for the boys and girls to practice, doing things their own ways.

The space is a little bit of a throwback to a time when bleachers were still raised, with the lowest level starting above the playing floor.

“The home side still has the same bleachers with a concrete base,” Moore said. “You could tell when they redid the gym they wanted to keep that home feel — it makes any team feel like they have an advantage in their home gym. It is just home.”

Before the girls head out onto the court, they start each game with a team prayer in the locker room, and then follow with a chant that Moore said preceded her time at the school, which began in 2012.

It begins with, “May the Lord watch between us when we are absent,” and is followed with the introspective, “What is the biggest room for improvement?”

It winds to its climax with the thrice-repeated phrase “Lady Bulldogs” and ends with “Where are we going? State!”

“I like that we have continued to use it, and it is great that we have continued to win state,” Moore said.

And as the team continues to bring home championship trophies, they’ve always got a reminder of who first blazed the trail for Natchez championships. In the front of the building is a picture of Irving and her NHS championship team.

“I am glad we have that there, because that is some of the kids’ aunts and moms and cousins,” Moore said.

Cathedral High School

At Cathedral High School’s D’Evereux Stadium, what makes the space home can be summed up in geologic terms: a hill and a rock.

Named for a boys’ orphanage — D’Evereux Hall — operated by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart that was located at the top of the hill and stretches behind the home-side goal line, the field can be surveyed by a fortunate few from the hill.

“They’ve got 20 spots they sell behind that goal line every year, and supposedly some of those spots have been held for 40 to 50 years by the same families — they call it hilltop parking,” Cathedral football head coach Ron Rushing said. “They’ve got a waiting list for people to get on it, but the spots don’t open up very often.”

The rock in question  — known affectionately as “Brock’s rock” — is a memorial that sits in the place where the former school chaplain, the Rev. John Brock, used to stand during home games.

“We all gather around it and say the St. Sebastian prayer, which is something Father Brock always did when he was still alive,” Rushing said.

But what makes D’Evereux stadium home more than anything else is how well the Cathedral community comes together in it, Rushing said.

“When we have the team run out, we have 30 to 35 kids run out in front of them and run them out, and we have a little over 120 kids involved with football when you count the players, cheerleaders, dancers and trainers,” he said.

“There’s that and we have the fan support — we will do a pink game, and it will be pinked out, and we will do a camouflage game, and it’s the same. Our fan base is far and wide, and they do everything they can to support us.”