Jan. 5, 2009

PART TWO OF TWO

Everyone gets involved in football in the fall

By Roy Mitchell

On any given fall Friday, signs near local restaurants, retail stores, service stations and the like advertise “Go Warriors,” “Panther Country” or other school exultations and logos. While Friday night football may be driven by community pride and passion, many of the game's logistics are due to highly driven and often unseen local boosters. Each school's booster club, consisting of parents, alumni, and influential citizens, volunteer their time, raising funds for needed football equipment and facilities, cooking game-day meals, peddling concessions, and even voicing the needs of school athletics at board meetings.

Sand Rock Principal Ben East appreciates the job his school's boosters perform.

“Our athletic club cooks for concession stands,” he said. “They take up money for parking and run the sideline chains. One athletic club member escorts officials to and from the field and takes care of them. Those are jobs taken off the school's hands. We know it's taken care of. We know it's done right.”

Cedar Bluff Boosters Club head Elbert McCullough said the people who support the Tigers are top-notch, too.

“The concession stand takes a lot of parent help,” he said. “It takes a lot of work before you start selling. Though we could use more, I have a lot of good volunteers. We have a few of them who are not parents. They just enjoy doing it.”

Dale Bates, longtime head of the Sand Rock Athletic Club, said he always has help planning fundraisers, which are necessary to replace worn-out equipment.

“We plan a project a year ahead of time to supply the school's needs,” he said. “We spend a lot of volunteer hours, even on weekends and nights.”

“We have a large group of parents that are involved in all our sports, but not all are parents,” said Cherokee County Principal Doug Davis. “We have a lot of participation from the community in general. They just have a love and care for the school and the players.”

Though pride and allegiance to school supersedes wins and losses, most every local team in 2008 often experienced the thrill of victory. Sand Rock, Cedar Bluff, Spring Garden, and Cherokee County High all advanced to the Alabama state playoffs. The Warriors made it all the way to the state final in Class 4A and amassed a 14-1 record.

Cedar Bluff Principal Bobby Mintz said a winning team often further invigorates a community.

“A really good team can bring a town together,” he said. “The people want to be a part. They will sponsor breakfast or dinner for the team, churches will support the team with meals, and the pep rallies become even bigger with bonfires and balloons decorating the school and neighborhoods.”

Behind the brawny linemen, boisterous coaches, peppy cheerleaders, and social minglers lie virtues of the game itself that the casual pigskin partaker may not perceive.

Boys are presumably made men with endless numbers of wind sprints, with perforations of the skin and numbness of the extremities from hitting and being hit, with a determination to reach goals and to be inspired by others. While some may insist high school football is just a game, that argument won't get you very far with local coaches.

“Football teaches the value of hard work,” said Gaylesville coach Brian Clowdis. “It helps keep grades up, increases self discipline, gives kids an opportunity to be a role model, and most importantly, it teaches kids to never give up, to fight through adversity.”

Sand Rock coach Russell Jacoway, whose 1985 team won the Class 1A state title, said football teaches many lessons.

“It takes a lot of dedication,” he said. “They pay such a huge price to be on the team. You learn hard workand work ethic.”

“I feel like football teaches so many life lessons,” said Spring Garden coach Jason Howard. “When things don't go the way you want them to, you have to dig down deep and fight to pick yourself back up and carry on. It builds great character.”

Jonathan McWhorter, whose Tigers advanced to the state championship in 2006, agreed.

“I think football for young men is the greatest sport they can play,” he said. “It teaches so much about life in general. Kids who are not involved in sports may not get that.”

Cherokee County coach Tripp Curry, who just led his Warriors to their second state championship game since 2005, said the work ethic football teaches is critical.

“I think the biggest thing with football is that you have to get out and go to work everyday--times when you don't feel like going,” he said. “Football teaches you how to be there everyday.”

A countless number of locals can point to past lessons learned on the gridiron. Today's players, too, seem to realize the gravity of football's lessons. Cameron Dupree, a senior defensive back for the Warriors, said he knows what he has learned.

“Football teaches me about life later on,” he said. “You don't get mad when the coaches yell at you. That's part of life. Move on and get better.”

Cedar Bluff senior captain Jake Bevels said he has seen the benefits of football, too.

“It's helped me in leadership,” he said. “It's helped me to keep my head on straight in life.”

The merriment and memories of high school football Fridays seems to linger well past one's high school years. Homecoming queens still carry their pride and glamour into old age. Band members still mentally march to the rhythm of the music in their dusty high school band books. Even aging men are sometimes still defined, in part, by their high school gridiron accomplishments.

With the end of the football season, Mother Nature occasionally spreads frost over the desolate turf on the county's five high school stadiums, concession areas stand idle, and football parking lots yearn for the attention they used to receive on fall Friday nights. Student-athletes, community boosters, and alumni are left to grasp memories .

Austin Parris, an Gaylesville eighth grader, surely summed up the sentiments of many football fans: “I just wish the season was longer."