60minuteMan

5 points---Shane Allen, Galax. Rough start against a powerhouse schedule, but everybody said you can never count out Galax, and you still can't. 4 points---Zane Quesenberry, Ft. Chiswell. First year had coach. won more games than Fort has won the last few seasons combined. Made play-offs and pulled off what some called a 1st round upset, at least seeding wise. good job. 3 points---Brandon Harner, George Wythe. Lost a lot of key players from a 1A state runner-up team, but still competed with the big dawgs of 1A as his team seemed to get better as the season went on. 2 points---Scott Mikowicz, Auburn. first year head coach taking over a really struggling program. Broke the team's seasons long winless streak by not only winning 2 games, but won those games in back to back weeks for a little 2 game winning streak with the 2nd one against hated cross county rivals E.Mont. This program hasn't been able to complete a schedule for the last couple years due to lack of players. He had enough players to play all 10 games with no cancellations or forfeits. Hope that's a good sign for the program. 1 point---Stephen James, Grayson Co. Preseason favorites from most around here to win region C and a good bet to be playing in Salem for the west. Had a fine regular season to finish 9-1, but struggled in both play-off games and finished getting shut out by a team they beat in regular season. I personally think James has a lot of his guys practicing year round, so maybe they were as good in week 1 as they were going to be, as other teams got better as the season went on. 0 points---Jeff Williams, Giles. My version of a participation trophy for the Spartan coach. Sad what's going on over there. I could go full "Animal House" and give him a Double Secret 0"

Can anybody confirm?

Big shout out of appreciation. You've given this old high school football junkie another great season. To the hand full of you I actually know, and the hundreds of you I've got to watch this year, Thank you. Although this probably wasn't the championship season you had hoped for, these will still be remembered as some of the best times of your life. Your dedication and hard work is truly admired. Play with Pride tonight, and give it all you got, 1 more time.

Damn!

hey wingman, I know you don't want to give away all the super coaching tricks away you learned this year, but how about benching a starter on defense, the week after playing a great game on defense. Not letting him practice defense all week, then starting him at linebacker on friday night after not letting him practice all week. Whooo! That's some major coaching right there.

not saying don't give the young guys a shot. if they've got obvious superior talent, great. In this case, the sophomore TB, started a couple games, but no real great results. So this week, they start a senior a TB, that hadn't practiced at TB all year, with better results. And to beat that, it was a short week thursday game, so he maybe had 2 days practice to face maybe the 2nd best competition we've faced all year. So, to the guy, (not you), that's been saying this team has no senior leadership, I think he should pay a little respect to a senior that did step up and show some leadership. but instead he just wants to poo-poo on the effort. Can't have that both ways my friends.

so your idea is to NOT put your best players on the field. Interesting. My guess is a lot of unemployed coaches already tried that formula.

We need 2 horns next year. Set one up on our side and theirs. Bunch of Wussies

Giles JV's have been good for years. Sad part is 1/3 of them will quit football before their senior year. And not because of the AD or because their sister plays soccer at Hilton Head in July, or something like that.

from what I'm told, Giles Co. doesn't have a participation problem in the youth programs. As far as off season weight lifting, Coach Ragsdale was never a real big off season guy himself. The program was there, not mandatory. Although there was better participation, I think that goes to my earlier statement that the guy coaching now is not well liked or respected. Ragsdale was both. The guys were willing to go that extra mile for him. Rags also encouraged kids to play other sports. He knew there were skills that could be learned in other sports that would help with football. Lots of football coaches these days don't like to see their top guys play other sports. We both want the same thing. Just disagree on the swiftest way to get there.

OK, a lot to take in there. So my question is, where do you begin to turn the situation around? You can't bring in 50 different players each year You can't bring in 100 new parents each year. My theory, based on the handfull of players I've known and talked to over the past few years is, the head coach is not very well liked or respected by the players. He doesn't seem to inspire kids to come out for football, or keep the one's participating in middle school or jv to continue their football careers. Participation numbers have been declining for years, and not wholly a factor of declining enrollment. Other area schools of near equal enrollments as Giles are not seeing these low turnout numbers for football, just check across the river. I'm going to throw this out as an example, Chilhowie. I know very little about that program. But I did catch one of their games this year. I believe they went 0-10 last year. They had over 50 kids dressed for their varsity team. What has happened there. They brought in a new Coach. I didn't look up enrollment numbers, but I'd say Giles and Chilhowie are fairly close. If you're satisfied to just let things go and hope they turn around someday, that's on you. Good luck with that. I got a patch in my yard that grass has quit growing. I can wait a couple more years and see if the grass magically starts growing again, or I can make a change and try something different to see if I can get that patch pretty again.

everybody knows the problem. A few on here are reluctant to admit it, but they know as well. they've been around long enough to know.

Come on Man, don't you have any faith some 16 year old kid might step up this week and show some leadership? Apparently, that's all that's lacking at Giles right now, right?

it's hard to show any senior leadership when the kids don't like or respect the head coach. Somebody explain to me, how a coach of a dozen or so years as head coach and a state championship has no, that's a big fat zero, former players on his coaching staff? My theory is, they didn't like or respect him enough as a player to come back and try to coach under him. One former player is on the staff at Narrows now, and from my understanding is a key influencer of the success they have had the last few years. Why is he there. From my understanding he's not a teacher, so he didn't go to Narrows because of a teaching job. Why?

from what I hear, school board meeting tomorrow. Should be announced then, I suppose. I'm hearing they promoted from within. When things are going great, why rock the boat???????

As far as i can tell, they only interviewed one day. 6 interviews held last tuesday. That's pretty poor if 19 applied. From what I'm hearing, they had their guy all along, and just went through whatever procedure needed to be followed. If I were in charge of the procedure, given the state of the football program, I'd of interviewed all 19, to see who had what to bring to the advancement of the program.

my understanding is they took applications through last friday April 14. heard they had 6 interviews scheduled 2 days ago on Tuesday. heard 19 total applicants, so don't know how many interviews are planned. from my understanding there is a school board meeting scheduled for May the 4th, and they are trying to have everything done so school board can vote to approve hiring at that time. This is all second hand news from a fairly reliable source. I'm not an insider to any of this.

you seem to know the impact on Galax high golf, but I mean overall. I recently had a conversation with a guy that was a club pro at a couple courses in the late 90's through about 2012. He said the impact of you youth programs and young adults taking lessons and joining clubs was enormous when Tiger came on the scene. After Tiger's injuries and personal troubles, those youth programs fell off, memberships started dropping off badly, and a lot of courses and country clubs have been struggling financially since.

off topic from the post, but do think the drop off in golf, has anything to do with the "Tiger Phenomenon" dying off. I think in late 90's there was a huge amount of young and new golfers coming out. When Tiger's career and reputation started crashing, so did youth interest in the sport.

I think you're right. Believe you said in an earlier response, they could be where Galax was a decade ago. The right guy might be able to get things turned around. It would be great to have another good team in the Empire, already the best 1A district, top to bottom in the state. IMO of course.

All in all, that's a pretty good theory, especially if some of the applicants are from a fair distance away. I would like to see someone come there looking to stay for at least 5 years, and not just hoping to build a resume to move to bigger and better things.

maybe just talk, but I heard Auburn has had over 20 people apply for the HC position. A little surprised that many would be interested at this time. I think they are taking applications through tomorrow, (Friday).

neither, but a school in SWVA

hearing a rumor that a very well known, former head coach, local to the area is interested in the job. I'll try to verify before saying more.

I would be surprised if anybody with past head coaching experience applies. Only one that comes to mind would be Eddie Slauss. With his record, especially at Blacksburg, Doubt Nontgomery County school system would even consider him.