Friendly Henry

And the last swva team to knock off Appo? Lee High, 2014 - right before they fired Terry Martin. 

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. 

In my opinion, high school students should be off limits for criticism by name.  
 
Critique the coaches who choose the depth chart-they get paid for that job.  A kid who is doing his or her best should not be subjected to the same standard as a paid employee. 

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

Even the seniors are green. The current QB was a 1k yd RB his sophomore year, then was moved to QB last year for lack of a better option. Hard nosed kid, with an incredible motor, but inexperienced at the QB position.

They don't have one, hence struggling. 

Not sure. I heard he was hobbling around school yesterday. Tough break for sure. Crazy year...miss a couple games and it’s a third of your season.

Exactly.....like I said “been too long”. I have faith in the current coaching staff, but the current crop of kids is pretty far removed from the moxie of the last successful GC team, with a few exceptions. Reed’s brother was an all state DB in ‘14. Him, Edwards and Jenkins are players. The rest are very young and/or very inexperienced, and most don’t even remember a successful season. Times are different, kids are different, and the once successful feeder program has been broken for some time.

I said “probably” should have won it all,  which is admittedly subjective. I was merely making reference to a solid GC team post 2010. That team was loaded with firepower and a stout defense....including multiple all state selections and 2A offensive player of the year. You’re spot on about the funky playoffs that year.

The 2014 team was loaded with talent on both sides of the ball. They made a deep run and probably should have won it all . But still, been too long... As a M7 fan, I would also love to see Lee High right the ship, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon either. 

Starting QB, and only experienced senior, went down early in the 1st with an ankle injury. They had a few seniors come over from basketball but none have played since little league. Had a couple in quarantine, including Jenkins who is their speedster. Youth and inexperience across the line. Rough night for sure. 

Exactly.....like I said “been too long”. I have faith in the current coaching staff, but the current crop of kids is pretty far removed from the moxie of the last successful GC team, with a few exceptions. Reed’s brother was an all state DB in ‘14. Him, Edwards and Jenkins are players. The rest are very young and/or very inexperienced, and most don’t even remember a successful season. Times are different, kids are different, and the once successful feeder program has been broken for some time.

As stated here multiple times, until the Little League program has a complete overhaul to get kids interested at an earlier age, there won’t be much success.  GC needs multiple seasons like last year to build momentum and attract players walking the halls while developing the elementary age kids at the same time.

I missed an apostrophe on the 2010..should have been 2010"s...no disrespect to the 2014 squad, who by the way should have at least tied that game in the 4th quarter, QB had two receivers open one at the post and one in the right corner of the endzone and threw into double coverage in the left end. That was the Caleb Herron lead team...like I posted above here's to better days! 

thats 7 seasons ago

“Should have won it all” is a pretty big stretch.  Gate City lost a tight one to Richlands in the Quarterfinals, which wasn’t that bizarre, given that Richlands was rolling at the time and actually played Gate City pretty tough on the road in Week 1.
 
That being said, the playoffs broke pretty funky that year.  Giles was almost a prohibitive favorite to reach the title game; they were mauling everybody until they were thumped 35-0 by a Glenvar team they easily dispatched just 3 weeks before that.  That 2014 Glenvar run was one of the weirdest state title runs I’ve ever seen.  They beat a good-not-great Galax team in Week 1; survived a good-not-great Botetourt team in Week 3; then played a cupcake schedule until Week 10, when Giles blew them away.  They barely survived a poor Central team in Round 1; marginally survived a good-not-great Union team in Round 2; then morphed into the 1992 Dallas Cowboys for the rest of the playoffs.  Very, very weird team.

The 2014 team was loaded with talent on both sides of the ball. They made a deep run and probably should have won it all . But still, been too long... As a M7 fan, I would also love to see Lee High right the ship, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon either. 

My hope as a long time GC alum and fan is that they are respectable again in the next couple of years. The run of talent from the early 90's to the till 2010 was amazing, but lack of interest (from both students and supporters) is just flat scary! Coach Houseright has his work cut out for him! GC is a basketball school now (that happens when you have the leading scorer in VHSL history come through and a future Hall of Fame Coach calling the shots. It is a shame to watch the demise of a true blue blooded program but things change and I am sure the haters are somewhere celebrating but what goes around comes around. Here's to better days and I hope I get to see them!

Im  far from a GC fan but Jeremy uis a good guy and will get things turned around, its honestly hard seeing the Blue Devils be as bad as they have been.

Starting QB, and only experienced senior, went down early in the 1st with an ankle injury. They had a few seniors come over from basketball but none have played since little league. Had a couple in quarantine, including Jenkins who is their speedster. Youth and inexperience across the line. Rough night for sure. 

Stan.......now your posts about GC basketball make more sense to me. Sounds like you have a long held hatred for some reason. 

In no way am I a Gate City fan but what John Marshall did should make them ineligible to compete in the VHSL. An AAU coach should not be allowed to to lead that and a high school team in my opinion. It creates an unfair advantage by blatantly recruiting players to create a super team. 

I don't think the problem is that they dropped down. The problem is their coach has access to an unfair advantage and used that to load a team up of kids that definitely don't live in the area. He's apart of the team loaded va aau program and has connections with those players. Some of those guys that played definitely don't live in inter-richmond limits. I know Scotty knew how it was gonna play out on the court way before the game was even played so I don't think he was upset about getting spanked. We've gotten spanked in the Arby's Classic by way worse so that's not the gripe. As he said the TSSAA has done things to prevent this exact situation. He was fine till John Marshalls coach basically told on himself in the press conference lol

First things first, JM can only play one of either Radford or GC not both.  Sorry to disappoint you in the fact that they won’t be able to kick both of their asses.  Secondly, how is that not bagging on two of the teams covered by your board?  You “can’t wait” for that to happen?
It’s no secret, JM is the overwhelming favorite but dang.

1.  It’s not a stretch to say that a kid who is 6’4 and can move has a higher ceiling...but obviously that struck a nerve.
2. Hayes showed last year he could be a star.  From what I see, everything Wise runs is...not for him. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with that-he doesn’t need the ball in his hands to be an asset.  However it’s unfair to blame him for “disappearing” when he was in foul trouble and they don’t run anything for him. 
 
3. I would bet that most teams in SWVA would have traded rosters with Wise this year.