Catching Up!

The first two weeks of the season have flown by quickly. Let me give you a taste of my last two weekends of prep football. It all began on Thursday, August 24 as Grant Taylor and I went to Spring Garden's jamboree. The 5 hour marathon featured Spring Garden, Gaylesville, Cedar Bluff, Sand Rock, Piedmont, Glencoe, Wellborn, and Ranburne. Let me say that the new stadium at SG is fantastic! I would estimate 4-5,000 fans during the course of the night. I think it was probably the biggest crowd for any event in the Garden's history. Cars were parked a long way in every direction down those country roads. I never thought I would see the day that teams like Piedmont, Glencoe, and Wellborn would be playing a football game at Spring Garden. Boy do times change!

I saw lots of folks in the standing room only crowd. Good to see Chris McCarthy from the Cherokee County Herald, Jerry White(play by play guy for Glencoe), longtime Glencoe fixture Doc Lett, Piedmont booster Brian Young, Wayne Thrasher from Wellborn, and Spring Garden basketball legend Dale Welsh. Trainer Shawn Seegar, referee Mark Jones, and Chain crew member Chris Tierce were all working hard. I also got to visit with some current and former administrators such as Cherokee County school system boss Brian Johnson, former Glencoe coach Alton Yancey, Wellborn principal Ed Whatley, Calhoun County Alternative School principal Hershell Evans, Glencoe principal and AHSAA board member Moe Smith, and of course Spring Garden principal Mike Welsh(who was pretty proud of the new Panther home).

Friday night the 25th Grant and I were at Saks for another jamboree featuring Saks, Crossville, Fyffe, and Talladega. Longtime Saks supporter Lynn Martin was again leading the chain gang crew at Jack Stewart Field. Not as big of a crowd at Saks, but a nice night of good football. The new pressbox/concession stand should be nice. We then hustled back to TV 24 for our first Pigskin Roundup of the season. Joe Billingsley drove over all the way from their jamboree at Oak Mountain and brought assistant Ali Smith with him. Ali was a great player himself for the Sansom Rebels back in the early '90s. Ricky Weems from Wellborn brought 5 of his senior leaders with him and it was a pleasure to put them on TV.

After getting in bed at 3 a.m., it was up on Saturday and on the road to Montgomery for the Champions' Challenge game with Clay County and Addison. It was 115 degrees on the field before the 3 p.m. kickoff. I had a chance to visit with Dan Washburn, Greg Brewer, Doug Barfield, Joe Evans, and of course Bogie Wood from the AHSAA Central Office. We went from 115 to a huge rain and wind storm in the second quarter, making for a long day and a tiring drive home back up highway 21. I am tired just writing this and at this point the season had not even begun yet! I will take you through Week 1 later....