In 1972, my high school alma mater, Southeast Bulloch, won the State
Championship in Class B for football. Boys I had played with on the
monkey bars, dissected frogs with in biology lab, or shared a laugh with
in homeroom won it all.... They went 12-0... (And no, I did not play
football. The Jackets were not in need of a 125 pound tackling dummy at
the time.)..In fact, the Georgia High School Football Historians
Association (
ghsfa.org) still lists records from that 1972 team. Some
are: (1) Average points per game for a team (51.0 points per game) is
still the top listing they have of all the schools that have ever
played football in the Georgia , (2) the team is also still listed #13
as
the top scoring total for a season, of the 15 listed schools in history.
These records may never fall, simply because the rules of today's game
have changed. It mandates a running time clock if the
game score gets
out
of hand: if one team is ahead by 30 at half time, the clock runs
continuously the second half. Up more than 30 after three quarters,
again
the clock doesn't stop the fourth quarter.
The 1972 team was a dynamo, often attempting long field goals to
slow down some of their scoring. The homecoming game was a 76-0 win that
year. Supposedly, the coach told the team if they were up by 50 at
halftime, they could watch the halftime show instead of going into the
locker room. (They did it.)
Coach Fred Shaver, for who the present day football field is named, was
a
tough but motivational-type
head coach. However, I recall one of the
High
School yearbooks dedicated to him called him a "man of God." Wow...This
fact, and the
Kenny Chesney song and video "The Boys of Fall" started my
mind to reflecting: Some words of the song are:
And it's knocking heads and talking trash/
It's slinging mud and dirt and grass/
It's I got your number, I got your back when your back's against the
wall/ You mess with one man you got us all/
The boys of fall/
In little towns like mine that's all they got/
Newspaper clippings fill the coffee shops/
The old men will always think they know it all/
Young girls will dream about the boys of fall
Southeast Bulloch is a small school that was formed from kids from the
small towns of Brooklet, Stilson, and Nevils (where I presently
worship.)
The 1972
football team put SEB on the map. However, in recent years,
the teams have fallen on hard times. A 19 game
losing streak has marred
a
couple of recent seasons . ..
However, the 2010 team has broken that streak and is presently unbeaten
in two games. The team seems to believe in each other, (and the present
coaching staff has brought back legendary Coach Shaver to talk to the
team. Funny how God works things out, doesn't He?), and I hope to see
them play sometime this year.
The song "Boys of Fall" talks about pulling together when things
are
tough....
Playing as one unit, one body, one team, etc...It does not matter who
scores as long as the team as a whole "body" together succeeds. Each
part
of the body or team contributes to the success of the person next to
them.....
1 Cor 12:12 says: "For as the body is one, and has a number of parts,
and
all the parts make one body, so is Christ."
We all must celebrate the different gifts of the Spirit that each has.
That's how the
Body of Christ is successful. That's how we will all win
in life's "most important game."
Are You listening to the "Coach" today? What's your "
Final Score" going
to be?
Blessings for the week of Sept. 12, 2010
Gary McCorkle
Nevils UMC and Dayspring 56
