VIDALIA — Dee Faircloth has only been to two Vidalia High School football game since he retired as head coach, but he’s looking forward to being in attendance Friday night.

Which is ironic, considering this week’s game has historically been Faircloth’s least favorite.

The Vikings will host Pearl River High School from Pearl River, La., Friday night for homecoming. It was no secret that Faircloth despised homecoming when he was coaching at Vidalia, and even though he’s retired, he still wants to get rid of it.

“When I take over the world in a couple of months, one of my first proclamations will be to let them have it in the spring,” Faircloth said.

“One year I remember asking if we could do homecoming during basketball season, and they agreed. But they called it ‘Sweetheart Basketball’ and we still had homecoming during football. I said, ‘Well, whatever.’”

Faircloth’s opinion on homecoming week has rubbed off on current Vidalia head coach Gary Parnham Jr., his former assistant coach. Parnham said the number of distractions that come along with homecoming week can be difficult to navigate through.

“It’s a lot of hoopla, and I don’t like it myself. I guess working for Faircloth for 16 years, it rubbed off on me,” Parnham said.

“There are a lot of distractions with stuff at the school, the parade and other things, so it’s hard to stay focused.”

Parnham said practices have been going OK this week, and one of the main questions he has is how to keep his team from getting down on itself after an 0-5 start.

“We’ve had a few distractions but we’re getting some work in,” he said.

“It’s easy to get discouraged, but the only thing you can do is try to stay positive, keep teaching and stress that we have some goals that are still attainable. We want to try and go out on a winning note.”

If any team can feel Vidalia’s pain, it’s Pearl River, which is also off to an 0-5 start this season.

“They’re in a rebuilding process with a new coach, so there are two very similar situations between us,” Parnham said.

“They’re a physical team, and they’ve played some good football teams — some 4A and 5A teams in South Louisiana — so that 0-5 record is kind of deceiving. To me, we have to match them physically, and one team is going to get out with a win, so we hope for it to be us.”

This week’s game is a break in district play for Vidalia, which is off to an 0-2 start in LHSAA District 3-3A.

“We’re heading into the meat of our district schedule (after this), so it won’t get easier for us,” Parnham said.

“We’re showing signs of improvement, we just have to play four quarters. If we can do that, we possibly could have had different results (against Avoyelles and Buckeye). In our district games, we’ve been right there, and if we had played a full four quarters, we might be 2-0 right now.”

But with Vidalia’s next district game a week away, Parnham will have to settle for getting past homecoming week. And Faircloth’s advice for doing that is pretty simple.

“You just have to have in there. That’s all you can do,” Faircloth said.