Handley honors ex-gridiron great

Team room beneath home bleachers will feature Perry's name

By Alex Bridges -- abridges@nvdaily.com

WINCHESTER -- Mickey Perry helped the John Handley High School football team end its 1938 season with an 8-1 record.

Now his name will be featured at several places at the school.

Winchester school officials held a press conference Tuesday to announce the naming of the team room on the home-side bleachers for the late football star. The team room was part of the renovation and expansion of the school that included work on the Handley Bowl athletic field and bleachers.

"Gee, I can just see him smiling here now, if he was about to go out on the field and see the wonderful facility as it has now evolved," said former state senator and fundraising coordinator H. Russell Potts Jr.

History and government classroom 1101 -- the first one on the left by the entrance on Handley Boulevard -- also will feature Perry's name. The 10-yard line marker will be named for Perry, who also will receive recognition in the press box, Potts said.

Stuart M. Perry Inc. gave more than $200,000 in in-kind donations to the renovation project, especially with regard to work on the Handley Bowl, in the form of labor and supplies. The firm constructed the base for the football field as well as the new home-side bleachers, under which the team room is located.

Stuart M. Perry's gift brings the total private contributions raised for the project to $7.25 million, Potts said.

Members of Perry's family and several of his teammates also appeared at the press conference.

Richard "Dick" Kern, Donald "Percy" Stewart and Harold D. Patton spoke highly of their fellow teammate and Handley hall-of-famer, who was inducted in 1993. Perry graduated from Handley in 1939.

"He was quite a player. He could rack 'em up and I enjoyed playing with him very much," Patton said.

Kern said Perry "was an exceptional person" off the field, long after he stopped playing football.

Potts and school officials also credited Stuart M. Perry for the work it has done on Handley.

Denny Perry, president of Stuart M. Perry Inc., spoke of his father's love of Handley, though he admitted that he and his children all attended James Wood High School.

Mickey Perry suffered dementia late in life but could remember that 1938 season.

"He probably didn't know what he had for lunch that day, but he knew everybody's name on that football team, their numbers, and what position they played, and I think he would be really honored to be here," Denny Perry said.