Plywood_King

Darren, Randy, whoever the coach is, now would be a good time to tug on the leash a little bit: https://twitter.com/goldensalsa14/status/530559439699714048 https://twitter.com/FALCONFRENZIE/status/530737523635785728/photo/1

Man, I hate to see this one come to an end, but it's a perfect way to cap off the (Red) Tigers final regular season. Too much emotion in this one, I'm going with Haysi in a classic.

I finally understand V-Cats signature. The Bearcats have an awesome band! It looked to me like Virginia High had a lot more talent than they are showing. I thought at first that maybe they had given up on the season, but looking back on some of the scores from earlier in the season, I'm not sure if that's the case. It's unfortunate. The team and community seemed really fired up last season, and it's a shame to see them so deflated right now.

Union will have no trouble whatsoever getting a first round game at home. It's all about strength of schedule, and if Marion got a first round game at home last year at 6-4 playing in the Hogo, I doubt that an 8-2 MD team that lost to two top-5 teams will drop out of the top 6, let alone the top 8.

Right, because it's the superintendent that establishes a school system's budget, not the school board which has elected representatives from the entire County. And if Marion does receive more funding than the other two schools, it's because of favoritism, and has nothing to do with the fact that Marion has almost as many students as both Chilhowie and Northwood combined. And if Marion has a better looking football field than Northwood's, it's because they are getting extra money, and has nothing to do with the fact that Northwood is spending its entire athletic budget on travel expenses, because they scheduled Twin Valley, Twin Springs, Bland, and Montcalm in out-of-district play, making them have to drive on average 146 miles round trip for the average OOD away game.

My goodness, I don't know how much they pay Marion's groundskeeper, but it's not enough.

Here you go:

Team A scores points. Team B doesn't. Team A benches their starters. Team B doesn't. Team A still scores points. Team B still doesn't. Listen, I don't like Marion being in the Hogo, but like it or not, they're not going anywhere; it's a geographical fit. Two of the three forks of the Hogoheegee River (The Holston) start inside of Marion's school district, making them a better geographic candidate than Rural Retreat or George Wythe, who have both been members of the Hogo for 20+ years. Geography is the only concern of the VHSL when it comes to Districts, and unless someone finds a way to pick up and move a town, nothing is going to change them being there. Above and beyond that, I don't know how many players Marion fields, but you would be hard pressed to find a 2A school in the state that fields a smaller team. They're usually matched man-for-man by all the 1A teams in the Hogo, and in the case of George Wythe and Chilhowie, they're probably going to be outnumbered on the roster list. If you somehow think that it's better for the kids' self-esteem for Marion to start kneeling the ball in the 3rd quarter, I'm sure that Coach Carroll would be willing to oblige you, but aside from that, I don't know what more you expect from them.

Here's the listing of Hogo teams listed by number of championships won. I'm missing the championships from 1975, '76, and '77, so if anyone knows who won those championships, it would make the list complete. I would be willing to bet that they were won by either Chilhowie or R.B. Worthy. Also, I counted a shared District Championship as a full championship, and the numbers in parenthesis are the number of seasons that team played as a member of the Hogo. Chilhowie - 13 (44) George Wythe - 12 (24) Lebanon - 8 (14) Rural Retreat - 4 (42) Patrick Henry - 2 (25) Holston - 2 (44) Northwood - 1 (26) Honaker - 1 (9) John Battle - 1 (14) R.B. Worthy/Saltville - 1 (16) Rich Valley - 1 (16) Castlewood - 0 (18) Marion - 0 (1) A big thanks to HogoOnline, because a good chunk of these I picked up from Hogoheegee.com

I don't know, Tim Tebow did it: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2012/10/19/tim-tebow-trademarks-tebowing/1645333/

Pretty boss, hoss. I just came around here last year but had been a quiet lurker for some time. I always enjoyed reading Leonard's Losers, so I'm glad someone has taken up the reigns.

Glad to know that I'm not the only person who thinks that. On a good night, when the fans are stomping the metal bleachers to the beat, it'll put hair on your chest:

Not so fast, my friend! George Wythe is coming off of a comfortable win over a minor rival, which will to help build confidence. They've got a very solid D, a lot of experienced talent on the field, a young coaching staff that is improving every week, and home field advantage. If it becomes a shootout, the Maroons are in trouble, but if they can maintain ball control and make a couple of stops on defense, I like GW's chances. I'm picking Tazewell, but closer than the experts are predicting.

Union has played a tough schedule, but it's nowhere near the level of Gate City's, and I don't think that anyone can dispute that the Devils are much better than 2-2. I like Gate City by a TD.

Agreed. I know that it took place outside of the high school, but personally, while I do think that the school acted promptly, I don't think that the coaches did enough. I've always been of the opinion that if you put yourself before your team, you don't belong on the team. The kids knew, or should have known, that everything that they say and do, whether in uniform or outside of it, doesn't reflect on them, but on the school. I was personally disgusted as a fan of the sport that the coaches let the kids stand on the sidelines during their suspension, wearing their jerseys. As long as they're standing there, there is a scapegoat. "Well, if they were playing, we wouldn't have any problems on the field. We could have beaten so-and-so." Of course, I'm also of the belief that if you aren't wearing your helmet on the sideline, you are saying that you don't want to play. Maybe I'm too old school for the modern sensibilities of a PC society.

I live in the County, and while I had heard about the mailboxes being damaged, I must have been in the half that didn't know who was responsible for it. The first I heard about the whole thing was the day before the Marion/Northwood game. And if it's true that half the County knew about it, why is it that no one reported it before hand? Sure, they're juveniles which would have kept it out of the widespread public eye, but I'm pretty sure that it's still a crime that the kids should be prosecuted for. Maybe UVAObserver could clarify that a little bit better; I don't pretend to know enough about the law to say that with certainty. Regardless, I find it hard to believe that the same school that expelled their star runningback for breaking the law, opening the door for him to transfer to their chief rival, would have let this slide.

A taco would actually make a great mascot for Abingdon. The Abingdon Tacos... I like it. Coming to a football stadium near you:

It'll still be an uphill battle (no pun intended). The talent isn't as strong there as it was the past few years, and they are running a new playbook. With a game this Friday, there's no time to change any of the particulars, and if Wright has to run the spread the rest of the year, he could be out of his comfort zone with playcalling and scheming.

On top of that, while last year certainly wasn't a good year for Hogo football, and thus far, this year doesn't appear to be any better, if I'm not mistaken, the last time a SWVA team won a D1/1A state football championship, it was George Wythe.

That might be a little bit of overkill. The Hogo won four different state championships last year.

The trouble with that is Highway 16. As it is, it's a shorter drive from the far East side of Rich Valley (from Chatham Hill towards Nebo) to Marion than it is to Saltville, but the idea of busing students across Walker Mountain is terrifying to anyone who would be making that decision, and rightfully so. I know that neither Marion nor Chilhowie is allowed to take Highway 16 to Tazewell County to play Tazewell, Richlands, or Graham, which is what caused Marion's travel concerns in the SWD. However, they can drive to Saltville and take Highway 16 across Brushy and Clinch, they just aren't allowed to cross the Walker Mountain section of the B.F. Buchanan Highway. Bearing that in mind, I don't think the current building that holds CHS and CMS would be able to support the students from Chilhowie, Northwood, and Chilhowie Middle, which would require a new school to be built. If you were to build a school on 107 near Midway, that would eliminate nearly all the travel concerns, and wouldn't be a longer drive for kids in the East end of the Valley than it was to Northwood. Pull the edge of the boundary between Chilhowie and Marion further West towards Seven Mile Ford and Riverside (they have Marion mailing addresses anyway) and you could have two Smyth County schools with nearly identical enrollment numbers, and very few travel concerns.

There are a lot of factors that would contribute to that, that have been discussed widely by both school administrators and politicians alike. At the end of the day it comes down to industry, the best example would be to look at the schools in the coalfields and how their enrollments have been on a steady decline for a long time. As a more local example for the Grayson/Galax situation, you can look at the Smyth County schools, who have similar geography and economic opportunities. In about twenty-five years time, Northwood and Marion's enrollment numbers have been cut almost in half, while Chilhowie's have been relatively unscathed, and if you look at the industry that has left the Marion and Northwood (previously Worthy and Rich Valley) school districts since the late seventies into the early eighties, there is a clear relationship. After Olin closed, the folks in Saltville started looking towards Marion for jobs, but as factories started closing in Marion, they began looking toward Abingdon and Bristol. Soon they began moving out of the Valley, because as anyone who has to do it will tell you, having to cross Walker Mountain every day isn't a fun experience. Chilhowie, because it sits in a crossroads between Saltville, Marion, and Abingdon, has seen it's population remain stagnant, despite the fact that most places in the region have seen school enrollment drops. So as younger people from Saltville move toward the Middle Folk of the Holston, younger people from Marion move further up and down the I-81 corridor looking for work and older folks moved towards Marion for retirement, because of its scenery, quaintness, and accessibility, causing their school numbers to drop without effecting the overall town/County populations. So, to answer the question, people go where there are jobs, and as small-time farming becomes less profitable, rural people go where there are unskilled labor opportunities. If there are no factories, mines, et cetera, they will find a place where those jobs exist. Yes, it is normal for local populations and school enrollments to fluctuate in 15-20 year intervals. However, the overall drop of school enrollments around the region is not normal, and should be very concerning.

Tazewell, Northwood, and Marion will have a 7-on-7 at Marion on this coming Tuesday, but like Sleepin nuts said, the season for that has pretty much passed. That is the last one that I am aware of that is scheduled.

Marion's preseason schedule has them scrimmaging Graham at Mitchell Stadium on 08/23, so there will be preseason play at Graham on that particular Saturday, but I don't know whether it will be the Grid-O-Rama, or just Graham and Marion scrimmaging. There is a Jamboree at Twin Valley scheduled for 08/15, and a Jamboree at Patrick Henry scheduled for 08/22.