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I never knew aardvarks as hostile creatures...

UVAO, I think your perception of the number of delusional fans in GC is skewed a bit. Yes, there are some, but on the whole, most of us know how hard it is to win the top prize, because after all, we have never done it in boys.

Lets not forget the parking and the field of dirt, not grass come late season. Oh and also the extra pushes or late hits to players of color that refs never seem to see. I will say I have personally not had a "bad" experience yet... I do have to agree with the 1950's style horns and his voice it was a pleasure when the sound system went out the last few times on the visitor side. All announcers should be for their home team but there is a limit to it and Grundy goes well beyond. Seriously how long does it take to say golden wave? Not the 10 seconds he stretches it out to be lol

Didn't Richlands have 2 radio broadcasts for a period of time? I recall listening to one that was not Ron Brown and was just filled with the most slack-jawed, gooberish commentary imaginable.

If you're talking about Ron Brown's crew, then you are crazy. He get's animated in big moments, but EVERY radio guy should. It brings excitement to the broadcast. And he is certainly not a goon.

Most I can remember Grundy having in the last 20 years. My senior year we had 28 and that was after going to two straight region championships.

Gate City High School, as a whole, has traveled the State of Virginia more than the majority of the other schools in all sports. To say they need to get out of SWVA is ridiculous. I don't see that it's delusional to think GC could win the state championship anymore than it would be for any other school to feel that way. If you don't go there thinking you're going to win, you'll be tucking your tail between your legs and making a long drive back home.

Heard Grundy had 50

My bookie has them 4/1...

I can imagine some of the Gate City fans here scrambling to BetUS in a vain attempt to put money on this. And I'm not kidding. I literally see this in my mind's eye, because delusion runs deep.

Great City, you said that in bball, GC has never played above AA. That's sort of a complicated issue. In classification name only, that is true. However, prior to a certain year, it was only A, AA, and AAA. Then they renamed the classes 1A-6A. I'm fairly certain that in 1997, when Salem beat GC in the bball finals, GC was AA, but in the new classification system, they were called 3A. I am basing this on the fact that in the fall of 1997, GC won the FB state championship in 3A. Even if bball didn't have 6 divisions back then, but just 3, GC was AA, which is the equivalent in today's day and time as either 3A or 4A. As far as your analysis of the slide in football at GC, you are spot on. The athletes are there, they are just choosing to focus on other sports, and not playing football. Kids do whatever appeals to them most. Also, travel sports are big in our area, with the TriCities hosting a bevy of tournaments in all non-football sports. I know that there is travel football in our area, but I don't think it's as prevalent. Just my two pennies.

My book in Vegas has Gate City at about 8/2 right now.

Graham 48 Bluefield 47 PikeView 38

Somewhere common sense has to come along while thinking inside or outside the box. However I know how many elected officials are and common sense seems to be something that is missing from them...

Rebounding was what I saw that killed GC last year. In that regional semi game, I saw Dan River get 7 consecutive offensive rebounds before a DR player finally scored a 3. Can't win like that.

We are not going to be "back" in football until we get more kids out of the halls and on the team. Way too many kids having to play both ways. We also have a lot of kids who only play one sport. This did not used to be the case. How many kids on the basketball team last year played football? Success on the field leads to more kids wanting to be on the team. The reverse is also true. Hard to stop a train once it is moving. Much harder to get it moving initially. (train = cannonball reference) Speaking of basketball..........not sure what % chance we have of winning a state title, and that should be the farthest thing on the players'/coaches' minds.......but barring injuries, we should have the best chance we have ever had. Don't think we embarrassed ourselves last year. (Even with Dean's injury causing his game to greatly suffer the second half of the year, and Zac battling an illness that I believe caused him to lose several pounds.) Didn't we take a fairly decent team from the East into OT last year? Should have a stronger team this year. Based on the many, many GC games I watched last year, not sure defense was our main issue. I would argue that lack of an inside presence....and the subsequent lack of rebounding was a much bigger issue. We gave up way too many second chance points. Unfortunately it was fairly routine for a team to get 3, 4, 5 consecutive offensive rebounds against us. I did a quick scan of the VHSL Record Book. I THINK GC has been in 4 state finals. We lost by 3, 5, 14, and 3 points in those games. We have never played above AA.

On the plains of hesitation lie the bleached bones of the 1000's, who on the very threshold of victory, sat down to rest and while resting died....C.W. Cecil. If you never try and fail, you have never lived. I am glad that our inventor's and scientist and explorer's not only thought outside the box they blew it up and built a new one. Long live the pioneers, rebels and mutineers..

One of my pet peeves is "thinking outside the box" for the simple reason of "thinking outside the box". Most of the time, there's a reason that the proverbial box exists in the first place: it isn't financially disastrous, and it's at least workable. For every success story that comes from someone who marched to their own drummer's beat, there are 100 stories where people have ruined themselves trying. I admire people who take that risk, but there's a certain level of "caveat emptor" that goes along with that level of thinking. As for financial development, that $20M number is a bit steep, but VCEDA and TIC aren't opposed to investing reasonable 7 figure sums to create reasonably paying jobs. 50 jobs at $40K/year is $2M, and if a company can turn just that low threshold, Richmond will earn its money back. As for SWRJA, there's nothing fatally flawed in its operation plan, but there are some points of their operation that are muy mal, and need to be remedied yesterday.

Have you ever been to Grundy? Horrible visitor side, PA right in your face and turned up to 11, bad angles, bad lighting. Makes Richlands visitor side seem like Mitchell. ?

One of them was my fault and I take responsibility for it. Sorry everybody!

How many damn left turns is this thread going to make?