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Miami Edison High School football players enter the field before their annual Thanksgiving night rivalry game against Miami High in 1964. From 1937 to 1974, the Edison Red Raiders and Miami High Stingarees met every Thanksgiving night at the Orange Bowl. During the heyday of the rivalry from the 1940s to the early 1960s, the game often drew crowds between 20,000 to 40,000 fans.
Miami Edison High School came from humble beginnings. The school’s origin began with just 1 teacher and 10 students at a rickety, bug-infested shack in 1895. The original Edison campus was built in the city’s Lemon City neighborhood in 1917. The school was then known as the Dade County Agricultural High School. The football team started in 1925 and were then known as the Cardinals, although the local papers often referred to them as the Aggies. In 1931, the school changed its name to Miami Edison High School shortly after the death of inventor Thomas Edison. The following year, the school changed the name of its sports teams from the Cardinals to the Red Raiders. That same year, Edison hired Ed “Pop” Parnell as its head football coach. A University of Florida graduate, Parnell transformed the Red Raiders football team into a state power.
Although Edison fielded great teams, they usually played second fiddle in the city to Miami High. The Stingarees dominated the Red Raiders winning every game from 1925 to 1951 with the exception of 4 ties. Led by All American halfback Jackie Simpson’s 3 touchdowns, Edison finally beat Miami High 21-7 in front of 35,000 fans at the Orange Bowl in 1952. Edison students and fans stormed the field and tore down the goal posts, causing a wild celebration down Flagler Street that lasted the all through the night. The victory gave Edison its first mythical state title. After Parnell retired in 1956, two of his former players who later became assistant coaches Jim Powell and Haywood Fowle, would succeed him and lead Edison to 2 more mythical state titles in 1957 and 1959. Prior to 1963, state championships were determined by sportswriter polls. The FHSAA would adopt a playoff tournament in 1963.
The 1960s brought many changes to the school. For much of its history, Edison had an all-white student body. Miami was a segregated city with strict Jim Crow laws. It was not nearly the huge metropolis and Gateway to Latin America that it has become today. At the time, the city was much smaller and was known as a tourist destination for northerners. Many of the natives pronounced the city’s name as “My-Yam-Muh”. By the mid 1960s, the African American population near the Lemon City area was growing. Many whites began moving out of the neighborhood. Dade County public schools officially integrated in 1966. More and more blacks enrolled at Edison. Among the first great African American athletes at Edison was Nat Moore, who led Dade County in rushing in 1968 and later played at the University of Florida and receiver for the Miami Dolphins. By the early 1970s, Edison had a mostly black student body.
In 1970, Edison’s football team captured its first and only official FHSAA state title defeating Fort Pierce Central at Miami-Dade Community College North Campus. (Now Traz Powell Stadium). The Red Raiders were led by quarterback Kary Baker, who later became the first African American quarterback at the University of Miami. By the late 1970s, the campus moved from Lemon City to its current location at 6161 NW 5th Court near I-95 in the city’s Little Haiti neighborhood. The school’s student body is now primarily of Haitian descent. The old Edison High campus became Edison Middle School.
Although Edison has not won a state football title since 1970, the school has continued to field solid football teams. Linemen Wilmore Ritchie, Warren Bryant and Keith Ferguson were three of the most dominant players to come out of Dade County in the 1970s. The 1985 team, led by quarterback Greg Jones and head coach Walter Highsmith (father of UM great Alonzo Highsmith) finished the regular season with an undefeated record. In 1988, Edison, led by then head coach Jimmy McCaskill reached the Class 5A state semifinals. The 2003 team, coached by Corey Bell, defeated perennial state and national power St. Thomas Aquinas of Fort Lauderdale in the playoffs, before losing to eventual state champion Naples in the Class 5A semifinals. The current football team is coached by former 2 Live Crew front man Luther Campbell.
Notable Edison High Football Alumni:
Buist Warren – Class of 1936
Earl Hise – Class of 1937
Haywood Fowle – Class of 1942
Jim Powell – Class of 1942
Al Hudson – Class of 1943
Jackie Simpson – Class of 1953
Olin Greene – Class of 1955
Larry Libertore – Class of 1958
Darrell Cox – Class of 1960
Pete Athas – Class of 1964
Nat Moore – Class of 1969
Kary Baker – Class of 1971
Wilmore Ritchie – Class of 1971
Warren Bryant – Class of 1973
Keith Ferguson – Class of 1977
Greg Jones – Class of 1986
Stacey Moore – Class of 1989
Dulack Guerrier – Class of 1990
William Joseph – Class of 1998
Carlos Joseph – Class of 2000
Nate Harris – Class of 2002
Terrell Walden – Class of 2002
Chad Simpson – Class of 2004
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