The fall of 1992 was a special time for me being a football fanatic, and the community in which I grew up. What I learned in those few months went way beyond football.
Being a former player of my high school team, it was a given that I would roam the sidelines at every game. In 1992, two things changed that made our crowds to big to do that. First, we had an exceptional group of athletes that season and the team was doing well. They were small but enthusiastic single A type players with an obvious hunger to win. And second, West Virginia SSAC had expanded the playoff field for the first time to 16 teams. Since I was a kid we had gone 8-2 or 9-1 every season and failed to make the playoffs. But this year would be different.
On a bitterly cold November night, the fans of number 14th ranked Valley High School traveled 3 hours south to see their team play the #3 team in the state. It was 16 degrees when we arrived at the field and hour before the game, lucky to have had my aunt and uncle save us a seat. It was like the entire community was there. Our crowd was doing organized cheers by that time, which I think must have seemed odd to the other side as they filed in the stadium, slowly getting there at game time. We won the game, never trailing, and the atmosphere was electrifying for the high school level. After the game most of us followed the team to a steakhouse, and finally met them back at the high school where it was like a spontaneous pep rally, lasting nearly an hour.
The next week, we traveled to the field of the #1 team in the state, a 5 hour drive south for us. It was a warmer Saturday afternoon, but the scene was much the same. Our bleachers were loud and overfilling well before game time. The much larger players from the other team kept looking up at us all through their pre-game workouts. By game time, our voices were already raw, but we were working off adrenaline as surely as our boys on the field. The other team took the opening kickoff across the 50 yard line, threw a bomb to the goal line, and scored on their second play of the game. For the first time in the post season we trailed, and it did not look good.
It was then something happened that would become a familiar source of pride to all of us. The conversion kick was good, making the game 0-7, and our boys ran toward the sidelines. Across the field, the home team was cheering as teams do when taking the lead, but we were louder - much louder. Our entire sidelines stood cheering our 11 as they came to the sidelines as if they had just scored in overtime. By the time the players reached our coach, they were visibly pumped, and looking like they were the ones that had scored. This was the case for the years that followed, every time the other team scored.
Our coach's philosophy had always been to run a grinding wishbone offense, three yards and a cloud of dust at a time. Our smaller but more disciplined boys took the ensuing kick off, and 12 plays and 9 minutes later tied the game.
I've kept the newspaper writeup of that game in my briefcase, pulling it out and reading it all over North America whenever I have felt homesick. We ran a record 70 offensive plays, kept the ball over 3/4 of the clock, allowing the #1 team only 5 plays in the second half on the way to a 28-7 win. After the game, just as the week before I followed the team to a steakhouse as everyone did and called my wife saying, "Meet us at the school about midnight..." to which she answered, "I've already gotten 3 calls. Everyone is going." It was an incredible scene as we crossed the county line 20 miles south of the school. There were fans parked in wide spots all along the way, cheering, waving signs they had just made. They would then get in their vehicles and follow the buses and the rest of us until by the time we reached the school it must have taken an hour for all of us to surround the team. We knew, we could taste, this had to be our year, the first year w ever made the playoffs.
The next Saturday we again followed the team 5 hours south to Matewan WV, the town in the Academy Award winning movie "Matewan", for the state semifinal game. They were the 3-time defending state champs, and again much bigger than our boys. This time our crowd was even bigger, as many of the high schools close to us showed up in support. It was a close game, one of those where there are a hundred, "If this would have happened" and "if we had only". We lost by a touchdown.
It was a long and miserable ride home, but again we ate with the team and reflected on a great year as best as our hearts would allow. Then as we reached the county line just as the week before, we saw something wonderful. There were even more cars lining the road this time, all cheering and waving signs that mostly just read, "Thanks!" Everyone joined the caravan, blowing horns the entire 20 miles to the school. We mobbed the team as they exited the buses, carrying them and the coach on our shoulders to the gymnasium. No one watching the scene would have known they had lost.
I think of that night often, have dreams about it, talk about every time I am around my former teammates or players from that '92 team. As any football player and he'll tell you the hardest thing in the world is when your playing days are over and you have to watch from the sidelines. That was the night I changed from being a player to being a fan, over 13 years after I graduated.
I think more than anything, my life has benefited by that night that defined "team" in my mind. It's everybody.
