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Some of y'all just sit around, watch the news, and hope it's bad just so you'll have something to bitch about.

Hello everybody. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been on the boards. Nearly 5 months now. While I won’t go into exact details — I felt it necessary to get away and take a break from most forms of social media. I left the board and also left Facebook for over 2 months. I used that time to look inward, instead of always looking outward and trying to find the negative around me. Through it all, I feel like I’ve started to turn a corner in my mental health. My family has went through the gauntlet this fall and winter. Multiple deaths — many due to Covid — have taken away people I loved dearly. Rifts with family and friends. Personal health and financial hardships. We’ve been through it all and come out (so far) stronger. Over the last several years, I’ve become unnecessarily combative to those around me — and that includes many of you here. For that, I am sorry. I’ve seen the pattern of who I was as a human, and continue to strive to correct that flaw on a daily basis. I don’t always win the battle — but I am determined to win this war. I hope that you can forgive me for things I may have said or done in the past that were out of line and unnecessary. If not — I understand that as well and truly respect where you’re coming from. I did years of damage to relationships and friendships that aren’t easily repaired. In any case, I am excited to get back and talk local sports with all of you. We are so lucky to be alive and healthy and able to talk about our amazing athletes from Radford to Ewing (hey Brady). Also, a huge thank you to GMan for checking in on me in what was a low point. I really do appreciate it.

Our public figures, in both political persuasions, have done a borderline unethical job of setting public expectations for this virus. One of the things Flip-Flop Fauci actually did correctly was to temper expectations for the vaccine, because the results wouldn't be a known quantity for some time. It was unclear if the vaccine would work like the flu vaccine (significantly cut the risks) or like the measles vaccine (wipe the sucker out). Turns out, the results are more akin to the flu vaccine, which is A-OK. However, expectations were set at an impossible level. What I cannot agree with is that the "bar was lowered". mRNA vaccine technology has existed since 1991. There was a SARS vaccine (COV-1) that was about 90% done but shelved due to the lack of presence in Asia for some time. The whole "we don't know the long-term effects" is a complete red herring, plain and simple. We have known for some time that the supposed "long term" effects of a vaccine usually manifest extremely quickly. Lo and behold, that's exactly what happened here. We found out that the J&J vaccine will cause blood clots in a microscopic percentage for women. Moderna #2 will make a lot of folks feel cruddy for about 24 hours. And, that's it. If anything "bad" was going to happen, it would have happened in the first 340M data points. To fit your analogy, it's not like 60% suddenly constituted an A. It's more like you took a 3-week summer course that would normally be a 3-hour fall/spring course. You still learned everything you needed to learn, and the final exam was just as hard. But it passed, not with an A, but probably with a B+.

The only buses getting lost at Riverheads are the Augusta County school buses on the days VHSL counts Average Daily Membership!

Just play Hurley for a 3rd time in the Food City parking lot.

The battle lines for this were drawn when these vaccines were in Stage 2 of their clinical trials. Unless Jesus and Donald Trump hold a joint press conference encouraging people to get the vaccine, no public sentiment will sway the ~30% of "never vaxxers". The only thing that's going to get through to them is to have their father, mother, sister, brother, or child die from COVID-19. That's the ONLY way, and it's so disheartening. It took having my church's children's pastor die for my church's congregation to start giving a semblance of a damn about it. And I've known so many people who thought it was "just the flu" until they had to see the effects of it Clockwork Orange-style. People who get their "news" and medical advice from sites like americanpatriot.baldeagle.beatthelibtards.trump.us aren't going to listen to logic. They aren't going to look at how stark the difference in data is between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. They're only going to listen when they have to carry the casket of someone who died from it. Until then, the stronger their views can be marginalized for the worthlessness they are, the better. If not for that ~30% of the population, we'd have this thing in the rearview mirror. Instead, we have ~30% of the population brainlessly volunteering themselves to be the control group in this Machiavellian experiment, volunteering themselves to be the breeding ground for sneakier (if weaker) variants of COVID-19 that will eventually evolve to evade vaccines altogether. I'm growing weary of missing activities I used to enjoy and taking umpteen safety precautions to help protect people who don't give a flying fig about protecting me. I'll still do it, because I still love them, but I believe some righteous indignation is in order.

Well my years as a "Raiders Football Dad" have come to an end. Kind of a big pill to swallow for sure! My oldest son graduated in 2018 and finished his years as a Raider with a 54-3 record and accumulated three championship rings along the way. My youngest son will graduate this year. He finished his years as a Raider with a 47-5 record (senior year only had 6 games) and accumulated three championship rings along the way. As a Raider Dad over the past 6 years I've watched my boys be part of a program that has gone 77-5!! What a blessing!! Even more so than the record is the fact that they got to play under Coach Smith and his staff (Coach Stephan Castello serving as interim HC this year). They pushed these kids to be their best and spent countless hours preparing to help their teams be ready to compete. Coach Smith has gone well beyond football with the boys and for many of them (mine included) is a pillar for them to have faith in for the future. During this time I've enjoy two trips to Big Stone Gap and had the privilege of witnessing an awesome OT game against Richlands in 2015.

Much appreciated, but I consider myself poorly educated due to the fact that I only did what I needed to make it through high school, as I had no ambitions of attending college. My ambitions at the time consisted of either joining the Marines, or getting a job in the mines. My dad (a Marine who survived Iwo Jima) talked me out of both. Fortunately, I was able to land a job at Eastman, where I learned that being dependable, listening to people with experience, taking an interest in learning the intricacies of my job, actually doing a good job and having some communication skills would allow me to make a nice living and retire comfortably. I consider myself beyond fortunate.

A few other notable programs on hold at the moment - Garden Green Dragons Whitewood Indians Ervinton Rebels Haysi Tigers Clintwood Green Wave Pocahontas Indians Raven Crimson Tide Let's hope these teams get back on the gridiron soon!

I look at it like a life jacket. A life jacket won't keep you from falling in the water, and certainly won't keep you from getting wet. A life jacket isn't even 100% guaranteed to keep you from drowning, but it greatly increases the chances that you survive if you take a spill into deep and/or moving water. I'd never consider getting out on the water in a kayak or in a moving boat without one, and I didn't hesitate to take the vaccine when my opportunity arrived.

Northam isn't on a ballot anywhere!!! The gubernatorial race in Virginia precludes the sitting Governor from seeking reelection. If you want to suggest Northam is pandering to his base to benefit the Democratic party, fine. Semantics possibly but facts matter. Not calling attention to misleading information is how we've ended up in this mess considering everybody has a voice with social media now. I'm not even suggesting there not be a football season. But the fact we're even having this conversation is directly attributable to those selfish people among us who refuse to be vaccinated. That isn't the Governor's fault in the least. I would say the same thing if the sitting Governor represented the Republican party. Those who refuse the vaccine are causing this situation to be far worse than it has to be!!! It may not be a cure, but it has proven to prevent hospitalization and death. Thus, reducing the stress on an already taxed healthcare system. If you (or anyone else) refuse to get vaccinated, you lose any credibility when blaming others for another shut-down.

I know when my wife ( at the time ) and I decided to have our first child back in the early 80's that if we had a son ( had a beautiful girl ) that I would not push him to play football, and in fact, try to nudge him toward a more none contact sport ( if he decided to play sports ) because of what I have had to deal with, which has gotten worse as I get older. ( now 61 turn 62 in July ). But if he really wanted to play, then of course I would help him any way I could. I started playing football when I was 7 in Maryland and continued through high school at Richlands. I transferred here back in the mid 70's. My parents were from Richlands and moved to Aberdeen Md in 58 after they got married for work but would get homesick every time we came back to visit family, anyway I digress, I also played baseball and had a couple of small injuries, but most of my issues have come from the sport I absolutely love........football. I have had 3 knee surgeries, 1 ACL, 1 MCL and 1 to remove the meniscus from my right knee, I am now told that I will have to have a total knee replacement on my left knee. I recently had a total shoulder replacement done to my right shoulder ( done by Dr Hommel in Bristol - highly recommend him ) because of 2 shoulder separations and 1 dislocation on my right shoulder, and I suffer from migraines and vision issues that the Dr's at UVA say are more than likely from the concussions I "probably" had from football. I say probably because back in the days I played, ( and I am sure a lot of you old guys on here know about this } they were simply called "getting your bell rung " and you were very often told to "suck it up and get back in there" which is what I wanted to do. I don't blame my coaches because they did not have the info back then of course that they have now. Now let me say this, I still would not change my years of playing football ! I learned so much about life and how to push myself and made some fantastic friends because of football and still have a love for the sport, but I do understand why some parents do not want their kids playing and maybe nudge them in a different direction or to flag football. I also think that maybe flag football for the younger kids is a good idea. One of my knee injuries and I of my shoulder separations were during youth football. I just would not want my son ( if I had one) to have to deal with the pain and surgeries and other issues that I have to deal with, and will probably have to deal with for the rest of my life. But I guess each parent has to make that decision for them selves. But you know, saying all of that..........if I had do it over again, as I sit here and think about this, I think I would still want to play ! God I loved being on that field with my teammates ! Sorry about the long post just wanted to give my perspective.

Where you went wrong is trying to use logic to understand one of Ralph's decisions. You will never be able to arrive at a logical answer for anything he does.

I know we aren't SW team but I also know there are some prayer warriors down there that would be willing to lift our head coach, Doug Smith up in your prayers. Coach had been dealing with what he thought was a pulled muscle for some time in his core area and last week found out it actually was a tumor. He's been told he has bone cancer in his spine and a biopsy was done yesterday to find out more. For those that have knowledge of the Raiders know that coach leads this team with an extreme amount of faith and love for his Savior Jesus Christ. We've played some of y'all in the past and you may have witnessed the prayer circle that our team does an hour before each game. That's the kind of commitment he has for the Lord and he tries to instill in his players. Here is just a small paragraph that he wrote to the football family, "Please know I am OK. Many people have had much worse. I am trusting God all the way through this. He has been my ROCK all my life. Anything I can do to bring glory to Him is good with me." I've said many times that I feel very blessed to have a man like this coach my boys and that statement just solidifies that more. Our team mottos over the past 5 years have been: PO1 (Power of One) scripturally based BELIEVE FAITH STRONG JOY FOCUS All of these he has pulled from a verse in the Bible somewhere. Now these "mottos" are being applied to his fight. Thanks for your prayers. We look forward to an opportunity to cross paths with one of y'all this year.

My understanding all along has been that the vaccines do not prevent anyone from contracting Covid -- but that the intent was to mitigate the most severe consequences (like death) associated with the disease. And the data so far suggest that they are all pretty darned effective when measured against that type of standard. So am I the only one who is a little bit perplexed by all of the "[insert name] was vaccinated but got Covid anyway" anecdotes?

Dickenson County wasn't prepared for a Tazewell parade.

I think he's about 6'8", 265 lbs. If that's wrong, a mad mom will set me straight.

I've received the vaccine and would consider myself pro-vaccine; but I find the idea of a mandate premature and deeply troubling. Additionally, I'd encourage others to stop the shame and blame tactics. These are not only ineffective, they're actually counter-productive.

FFS, nobody gives a damn about y'all fluffing yourselves over politics. Take it to the soapbox.

& CMT Sporting Goods in Salem 😏

And so it is decreed that, each year, the various districts of Class 1 Region C and D would offer up, in tribute, one team of brave young men to battle the Riverheads Gladiators in a pageant of honor, courage and sacrifice.

I think he did that in the first half last week in Radford.

40 games, a high school player has the opportunity to play in 40 games. For the kids in high school now that's been cut to 36. Every one after that is precious and should be viewed as such. For those teams that are struggling, that's the beauty of +1. They don't have to play a dominant team that will physically beat them down and embarrass them, they can play a competitive game with a team facing similar issues.

Keep going strong boys. We are going to have 10 pages of trash talk on the game that never was.

To be fair that was the school's single greatest football victory in March

If anything was proven today it's that there's a lot of distance between Tazewell County and the rest of the SWD, both literally and figuratively.

At the end of the day, who ever scores the most points in the time allotted will win.

Nobody wins. Somebody will be elected. But nobody wins.

I decided to attempt to keep track of Class 1/2 on the west side. Probably should have picked a different year! haha Trying to keep track of all the ppd/ccd games has been nuts. Thanks to @VHSLhelper for his "moves" thread! Also, due to the amount of teams playing private schools and way out of their region, more teams to keep track of. Don't shoot me if these aren't 100% accurate, I'm sure I've missed some. If you see a mistake, let me know. D2... 01.) Graham 3-0 62 20.66667 02.) Ridgeview 3-0 60 20 03.) Va High 3-0 60 20 04.) Central-Wise 2-2 62 15.5 05.) Union 2-1 45 15 06.) Tazewell 1-2 40 13.33333 07.) Richlands 1-2 39 13 08.) Gate City 1-2 36 12 09.) Marion 1-3 44 11 10.) John Battle 0-3 28 9.333333 11.) Lee 0-2 16 8 D1... 01.) Twin Valley 3-0 58 19.33333 02.) Chilhowie 3-0 56 18.66667 03.) Holston 3-0 54 18 04.) Rural Retreat 2-0 32 16 05.) Grundy 1-1 31 15.5 06.) Twin Springs 2-1 45 15 07.) Eastside 2-1 44 14.66667 08.) Pat Henry-GS 2-1 43 14.33333 09.) Honaker 2-1 38 12.66667 10.) Thomas Walker 2-2 46 11.5 11.) Northwood 1-3 36 9 12.) J.I. Burton 0-3 24 8 13.) Castlewood 0-3 18 6 14.) Lebanon 0-3 18 6 15.) Rye Cove 0-3 17 5.666667 16.) Hurley 0-2 10 5 C2... 01.) Glenvar 3-1 80 20 02.) Appomattox 2-1 57 19 03.) Floyd Co 3-1 69 17.25 04.) Radford 3-1 69 17.25 05.) Martinsville 2-1 49 17.25 06.) James River 2-1 48 16 07.) Gretna 1-2 45 15 08.) Chatham 1-1 27 13.5 09.) Patrick Co 1-2 38 12.66667 10.) Nelson Co 1-2 32 10.66667 11.) Dan River 0-4 37 9.25 12.) Alleghany 0-2 17 8.5 C1... 01.) Galax 3-1 75 18.75 02.) Giles 3-1 69 17.25 03.) Bland Co 2-1 40 13.33333 04.) Covington 2-2 52 13 05.) George Wythe 2-2 52 13 06.) Narrows 2-2 50 12.5 07.) Grayson Co 1-2 34 11.33333 08.) Craig Co 1-1 22 11 09.) Parry McCluer 0-3 26 8.666667 10.) Fort Chiswell 0-4 30 7.5 11.) East Mont 0-2 13 6.5 12.) Bath Co 0-1 6 6 13.) Auburn 0-2 11 5.5

Graham by about 3 scores. Galax is a good Class A school, but they don’t have the horses this year to keep up with the speed.

Make as much noise as you wish! It's football, not a dance recital.

It's sad we got to this place. This shouldn't have been politicized. And both sides are at fault. This should have been all of us coming together to protect each other because that's the human thing to do -- but we are barely humans at this point. We just want to fight and sling mud.

I just laugh at the ones who think its a way for the government to track someone with a tiny microchip. Same fools carrying a smartphone everywhere with them, the government tracking device you pay for yourself.

Honestly, it takes a very special interpersonal skillset to do the job. Are we underpaid in comparison with the rest of the state and surrounding states? Yes, however I average $25-30 an hour when I'm on field. That is not bad money no matter what you're doing, especially if it is something you enjoy. Travel? Pfft, unless it is to Ewing or Galax, it's a walk in the park. The abuse, mehh. I do not pay one iota of attention to any spectators comment. I do it because of the relationships I've made, the opportunity to always be improving at the craft and my people skills, and giving back to sports that I owe so much to for making me the person I am today off the field. I truly enjoy being around the game, the student athletes we serve, and the coaches. I get that it is not for everyone, but there sure seem to be some rules aficionados during the season on this board so I thought I'd place my help wanted plug here 😂

Thank you. Can we please leave politics out of the football threads? All it’s doing is diving is further. Calling someone a “dumbocrate” or a “racist republican” does absolutely nothing good and takes away from what this board is about. If you want to talk politics — please go to the political forum so those of us who are tired of politics can keep from seeing it.

The prominent Lee County businessman:

Watching some of their games this year I noticed their sportsmanship several times. Pretty impressive. Appomattox Football kinda reminds me of Grundy Wrestling. When you go to Grundy for the Aggie Skeens or a dual there's not a person there that doesn't treat you like family. By the time you get back to Oakwood you realize everyone on the team got pinned in the first or second round and you somehow have a smile on your face because of how nice they are.

My second born son was just named to the varsity soccer team at Liberty-Bedford. Pretty sure he is the only freshman that was taken. They had good numbers at tryouts and it's a very deep pool in terms of talent. All three of my boys are pretty gifted physically. But #2 is the best athlete among them by far. He also wrestles (won three event medals in his first year) and played pretty much every down on the JV football team this spring season. Kid has also suffered mightily this past year due to the various shutdowns. So this good news is certainly welcome and I just can't help but crow about it.

To be fair, Thomas Chambliss Williams was a pretty despicable human being. He even went so far as to ensure the use of “Eminent Domain” displaced only black families in order to build a new high school.....that would ultimately bear his name!

SWD leading the M7 2-0 in the SWD-M7 postseason challenge with 4 games to go 😆

On video he looks, 6' 7 1/2" max. I refuse to believe anything else

You have 8 posts on this site and 2 of them are bashing a teenager. You are likely the parent/relative of one of the backup QBs....but if you aren’t, then you seriously need to re-evaluate your priorities in life.

I heard from a reliable source (my imagination) that they were all going to let Richland’s in until Union reminded everyone about the Blue Tornados trampling their band in 2017. All the principals started chanting “Remember the Band” and changed their vote to Union. It was the classy thing to do.

You’re 6 times less likely to get infected at a Chris Stapleton concert than a high school football game. It’s science.

I was disappointed the Blues didn't win. In my local newspaper this morning they had a picture of Chancellor Harris running down the field after the win. Seeing the joy on this young man's face took the sting of the loss away. 17 years they waited, a long time. How some can fault a town wanting to celebrate a win for these young men, I don't understand. In the story line, Josh Herndon talked about the middle school coach of these young men, and how the Dawgs went undefeated that year. That coach was Stevie Mitchem, now deceased. I knew Stevie well, we went to church together. On Sunday morning during football season, because of my Richlands football ties, he was always ribbing me about the Blues. I remember his funeral service and a group of young men in their football jerseys. This was the young men that won yesterday. I looked back at Stevie's obituary card and saw the date of his funeral was March 11th. Four years and two days after honoring their middle school coach, their dream came true. If Stevie had been here, he would have been cheering the loudest for these young men.

If I go to work sober for the first time in 10 years this week, can I get a parade on my way home?

TazewellBulldogRadio.com

Every Richlands Blue Tornado Head Football Coach is given a Gold Card to show to Richlands area business. Free Meals, Free Booze... Hell, I think you can even have a funeral for free with that card. That has to be well over 6 figures in worth.

I keep seeing the word “dominant”, but I’m not sure it’s being used correctly.

Kids playing was goal #1 Goal #2 let's get attendance up It's not about complaining, it's about not depriving people of something they enjoy or preventing them from supporting our youth in their endeavors. Especially when that decision isn't based on logic, science, or really anything else