An author who spent many years covering local news in The Villages is preparing to release a book about the 1964 Wildwood High School football team’s improbable state championship victory.
Gary Corsair, who now lives in North Carolina and became acquainted with the story during his 19-year journalism and broadcast career in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown, recently launched a campaign to fund the writing, editing and producing of the book, as well as the restoration of the long-lost 16mm film of the 1964 State Championship game.
Titled “’Cats With 12 Lives” and scheduled to be released in April 2020, the book is based on more than 80 interviews with team members and their families, cheerleaders, fans, opponents and coaches, including several conversations with legendary head coach Byrd Whigham, who died in 2017.
“Forget about ‘Hoosiers,’ ‘Rudy,’ ‘Glory Road,’ ‘Remember the Titans,’ the 1969 New York Mets, or any other team that overcame great odds,” Corsair said. “Wildwood’s 1964 football season is the greatest underdog story of all-time.”
Corsair said one of many interesting facets of the story is that the Wildcats originally weren’t even eligible to compete for the state title.
“Small, Class B schools like Wildwood were excluded from the playoffs,” he said. “Coach Whigham convinced Florida High School Activities Association officials to let Wildwood compete in Class A, and lo and behold, the Wildcats went undefeated and won the Class A championship. It is the only time in Florida football history that a school was allowed to ‘play up’ and won a title.”
Corsair also is the author of “Legal Lynching: The Sad Saga of the Groveland Four,” a book that was instrumental in leading Florida lawmakers to pardon four men accused of rape in 1949. He has received 68 journalism awards during a career that began at the Kokomo (Indiana) Tribune. He also wrote for the Plymouth (Indiana) Pilot-News and was editor of the Zephyrhills News before coming to The Villages and being named the first editor of the community’s daily newspaper. In North Carolina, he served as publisher and editor of The Graham Star in Robbinsville.
You can learn more about “’Cats With 12 Lives” and the Kickstarter campaign to bring recognition to the 1964 Wildwood Wildcats by clicking HERE.