In the South, as in in other parts of our great country, hunting, fishing and football are kindred spirits. Meaning, the participants usually participate in all three of these outdoor activities. Growing up in South Carolina playing high school football in the early 80’s, I don’t know if my friends liked hunting, fishing or Friday night football games more. Hunting/fishing and high school sports were our main objectives as teenagers – in addition to getting the attention of young ladies. All three were the circle of life for a Southern country boy. Even if we didn’t catch the eye of a pretty girl, we enjoyed those outdoor activities. This blog is dedicated to outdoor activities and Country Fried Football will connect the love of hunting and fishing with a love for the sport of football. It’s just the way we live in rural communities.
Turn back the clock and go to Anderson, SC, the first week of September in 1980. As a freshman in a small country 2A high school in South Carolina, I was asked to play varsity by our head coach and was a back-up quarterback. In week one, we had beaten rival Pendleton High School in an upset on our home field. Pendleton was a top ranked 2A team. We owned the Bulldogs on our field. Crescent had finished the ’79 season with one of its best seasons in the history of the school. My brother played QB on the ’79 team, and that group of athletes was probably the best group of athletes to go through Crescent since it was founded in 1955. My brother’s class of seniors and great athletes had moved on, but we still had some quality players returning and much was expected of our 1980 team. The defeat of the ranked Bulldogs was a good sign that we were up to the challenge.
We entered week two with a great confidence bordering on “over confidence.” Week two’s opponent was McDuffie High School in Anderson. They were typically not a good team, and we were expected to win by several touchdowns. Week two also was most special because dove season opened (another highlight of our young outdoors lives). The enjoyment that I, along with many on my team, received from a good dove hunt was unequaled unless it was scoring a touchdown or winning a big game on a Friday night in the fall. I would often leave high school at 3:00 PM and ride to our dove field and sit on the tailgate of the three-on-the-column F-100 green pickup and watch doves fly into the field. Leaving the field at 4:30 PM, I would drive extremely too fast to the high school as we had to be on the field by 5:00 PM.
Friday morning of gameday, I was in class and the principal came over the PA system and asked that I report to Coach Clark’s office immediately. As a 14-year-old freshman on varsity, I was mortified as to why our head coach needed me. As a rule follower, I shouldn’t have done anything wrong. Perhaps he was going to move me to the JV. After shutting the door, he proceeded to tell me that our starting tight end had shown up drunk for the JV game on Thursday evening and he would be suspended for the varsity game the following night. Our team didn’t have a lot of depth, and most of our better players played both ways. Coach Clark told me he needed me to learn the tight end position because starting at tight end that evening. Thrilled and mortified at the same time, Coach Clark taught me the basics of the position. As back-up QB, learning the plays was not an issue, but learning what the tight end did on each play took some studying. After about an hour on the field, the basics were down.
During that evening’s game, the Tigers took the field with confidence that had morphed into overconfidence after our upset victory over the Pendleton Bulldogs. We were minus our starting tight end who played defensive end and our starting center who was our best defensive tackle, Greg Craft. Greg was a lifelong friend and my brother’s best friend since early childhood and often looked out for me. Greg was also our hunting buddy and was equally excited about opening day of dove season. Due to a bad case of the flu and since we were heavy favorites, the coaching staff had decided to hold Greg out for McDuffie.
We could not get anything going offensively the entire first half. McDuffie managed to score three touchdowns and kick the PAT, so the score was 21-0 at halftime. Everyone was shell-shocked at halftime with our less- than-enthusiastic playing during the first half. The halftime locker room was quiet and had no energy. Coach Clark was not an unusually loud coach –more pensive than loud. About 5 minutes before we had to take the field, he gathered the team up for comments. Most of us were expecting a butt chewing because we deserved it. Coach Clark’s motivational speech was short and a stroke of genius. It was only one sentence. He said, “If you boys don’t win this game, not a one of you will be dove hunting tomorrow because you will be practicing all day!” That’s all that needed to be said to a bunch of country boys. Coach Clark also told Greg that if there was any way possible, he needed to play the second half. Greg entered the game to make a big difference. We proceeded to go out the second half and score 28 points and hold McDuffie scoreless escaping with a win on the road. Oh yeah, a reverse pass to the delayed releasing tight end was called in early in the 4 th quarter for the tying score. I was wide open and caught it on the 8-yard line. The next 8 yards were a marathon since I could hardly place one foot in front of the other due to excitement and fear, but I managed to stumble across the goal line!! The next day was amazing too with a fantastic dove shoot with much fun had by all, but we all knew we narrowly escaped being at football practice all day. Coach Clark’s brilliant halftime speech is still talked about by many of us today and that legacy lives on.