Plays of the Week

 The game of football takes on many different meanings for all who watch and participate in the sport.  Life lessons, morals and ethics, responsibility, balance, practical application, how to excel, how to fight, how to win and lose, and how to work well with others to achieve an end.  Football from the NFL down to area high school has been and will always be a tradition, a tradition that embodies “plays of the week,” “hometown spirit,” standings, and statistics that make not only players proud, but family and friends honored to attend games, tailgate, making sure players have water ready to drink, or just simply play the sideline. 

 

We have arrived at week 5 of area football here in the Chattahoochee Valley, and what some call rivalries or a “closer look at Friday night’s games,” I call “the fight schedule.”  Standings and statistics tell a tale of how these young men battle it out for supremacy in the area and their region.  Each player battles every week for omnipotence at their position and another win for their team, has a story to tell.  Looking at the “High School Roundup” in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer those Carver Tigers (4-1) have monopolized the area since 2008 with defensive and offensive standouts that have gone onto college and eventually the NFL.  Followed by other area teams like Northside Highschool, Shaw Highschool, and Columbus Highschool.  Teams like the Spencer Greenwave (0-4), the Kendrick Cherokees (2-2), Jordan Red Jackets (1-3), and Hardaway Hawks (0-4) have not put up numbers as individuals that would place them in the “HighSchool Football Statistics”  section of the Columbus (Ga) Ledger-Enquirer as an offensive or defensive stand-out, but they have put up a different kind of ‘high numbers’ on overall team moral, that add up to everything that has truly allowed them to “move the chains,” converting those loses on the field into improvements as individuals and as a team.  These improvements will eventually lead to winning seasons, playoffs, and championships.  On a team level as a whole, Smiths Station Panthers of Smiths Station, Alabama are a leading example of this different kind of “high numbers” that is reflective in seasonal statistics of running back K. Johnson who had eight carries for 79 yards; averaging 9.9 yards a carry, and one touchdown; or Quarterback D. Sinquefeld who threw for 422 yards and four touchdowns to three of his top receivers, T. Trimble, M. Bowens, and 123 yards receiving A. Reedy.  Smith Station was one of the schools that did not submit player statistics to the Ledger-Enquirer this week, but I found their school stats on Maxpreps showing how each player has improved on the field.  On September 20, 2014, “Chattahoochee County’s Brandon Jones receives a hug from Gina Cox as she inducts his brother Quin Jones into the inaugural class of the Chattahoochee County football hall of fame during halftime [game against Crawford County] Friday.  Quin Jones graduated in 2008, and died in March 2011.”  This halftime induction/dedication showed the sensitive side of a hard-hitting and dangerous sport.  The Central Red Devils of Phenix City, Alabama defeated past playoff nemesis Prattville in regular season play.  David Mitchell, of the Ledger-Enquirer wrote, “Central, which had already faced a gauntlet of top-tier opponents in its first four games was still looking for that real signature victory that signaled its entrance into the Alabama Class 7A state championship race.  Friday’s win is a step in the right direction.”  Mitchell quoted top offensive running back Treveon Samuel, “It’s a big one,” an emotional Samuel said after the game.  When asked how big, he said it was the biggest of his life.  “I’ve never had a win like this.”  If you examine the game by quarters you can see that it was truly a slug fest, like Optimus Prime and Megatron, as the Red Devils walked away with the 42 to 34 victory over the team that always knocked them out the first round of playoffs in past years, under former head coach Woodrow Lowe.  Incidentally, this week’s passionate victory over Prattville came after one of Central’s seniors lost his life to gun violence.  Another team who deserves big props this year are Columbus, Georgia’s Division 1-AA’s Calvary Christian Knights.  This is a football team whom is only four years old, and are currently 5-0 “for the first time in” the teams short history.  With two top offensive players in running back Jacquez Green and Quarterback Anthony Santiago, and four top defensive players in Cranford Ledbetter, Taylor Faulk, Tim Thomas, and Steven Fowler, this is what staff reporters for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer had to say about Calvary Christian in the “HighSchool Roundup,”  “Calvary Christian’s Anthony Santiago had 21 carries for 237 yards and five touchdowns to lead the Knights to a win over Covenant Christian.  Calvary Christian rushed for 311 yards.” 

 

When a water boy does not neglect his duties in anticipation of and at each week’s game, you know the spirit of the game is alive.  You can go to local TV station WTVM 9 website and vote for the best of three plays from the week’s games; it is called “play of the week.”  Raycom Network News has started airing weekly high school games in Alabama and Georgia on the Bounce network, station 9.2.  On Saturdays from 6 – 6:30, local NBC station WLTZ 38 has a show called Coach’s Corner where a coach from an east Alabama High School itemizes the week’s game.  When these games are itemized by quarterly statistics, you the fan catches a glimpse into the personality of each team, there individual personalities, how good is the offense, how good is the defense, how good is the special teams, what type of head coach, and what type of coaching staff.  “The fight schedule” implies how each team wages war on the opposing team, exchanging blows, scrapping to defend or “get it in” the end zone.  In fact, final scores and player statistics chronicle an account of four quarters of pulverizing play, pounding tackles, noisy snap counts, “plaguing turnovers,” breath taking interceptions, and relentless runs.  “The fight schedule” does not encourage violence, but encourages competition, constructive criticism, and moral and ethical engagements on and off the field. 

 

These Highs School teams run offenses like pro-set, wishbone, wing-t, I-formation, lone setbacks; defenses such as 4-6, 5-4, nickel packages,  and even 6-1.  When you watch them play, it is just as exciting as watching a Thursday or Sunday night NFL game.  The only thing missing are the pre and post-game shows.  Coincidentally, you can catch all the commentating and highlights of all the local games with Jonathan Husky of WRBL 3 with “In the Prep Zone” and Dave Platta on WTVM 9 with “Sports Overtime.”  Hearing or watching local high school stars like former Central Red Devil Deon Hill of Georgia Tech, whom was recently “nominated for the Orange Bowl-Football Writers Association of America’s Courage Award,” Jonathan Wallace or Gabe Wright of Auburn University, or Isiah Crowell of the Cleveland Browns, and Jarvais Jones of the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday or Saturday, is prospect for all those top stars of Thursday or Friday night, who overcome those obstacles in their path as they play for the end zone.