Bio

Leonard Sumrall

Perkinston Agricultural High School & Junior College (1953-1955) / Tennis
Gulfport, Mississippi

At Gulfport High School Leonard Sumrall won the District 8 championship in tennis in 1952 and 1953.

As an athlete at Perkinston 1953-1955, Sumrall never lost a college tennis match.  On May 1, 1954, Sumrall and Max Patterson won the Mississippi Association of Junior Colleges tennis doubles.  Sumrall was a member of Coach Curtis Davis’ 1954 MAJC Championship Team.  He received a letter in tennis and a letter in basketball in both 1954 and 1955.  And in 1955 Sumrall was awarded the D. L. Hollis Athletic Trophy as the athlete who contributed the most to the all-around athletic program. 

Sumrall’s performance in the MAJC basketball tournament in March 1955, secured for him a basketball scholarship to Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee.  From 1955-1958, he played basketball (Bethel College did not have a tennis team). He was injured playing basketball and stopped to teach for a year at Cottage Grove High School in Cottage Grove, Tennessee.  He graduated from Bethel College with a bachelor of science degree in May 1958 and returned to the Mississippi Gulf Coast where, in the summer of 1958, he won the 1958 Mississippi Gulf Coast Tennis Championship sponsored by Keesler Air Force Base.

He returned to Perk in September 1958 where he taught Social Studies and coached all high school athletics at Perkinston Agricultural High School.  He also coached college tennis. His men’s and women’s teams together won the 1961 MAJC State Tennis Championship. Two of his women players won the 1962 MAJC Doubles Title. 

From September 1962-January 1963 he taught college health at Perkinston the first semester at the newly established Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College.  He turned over the tennis team to Sue Ross in January 1963 and went to Louisiana to teach.

Sumrall’s career as a teacher, coach, and administrator spanned 53 years. He spent 24 of those years as a teacher and administrator in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, where he became President of the Jefferson Parish Teacher’s Association and principal of Trudeau B. Livaudais Jr. Middle School. He spent 21 years as a teacher at Harrison Central High School.  He retired from the state of Louisiana and the state of Mississippi in 2009.