ghs73

that is true about other sports but unlike football most other sports are played earlier in the day not as late as football like track baseball basketball and such, but then again i know that you will say that to make those times lee would have to leave school early well graham has had to do that with many games also but i think that it is a shame that the people at lee feel like they do about the swd. but that is ok also to be honest it will never hurt my feelings if lee never did play graham. a game against them would do no good for graham as far as being a tough game to play.

hey beamer i really do understand what you are saying but read the post from trumpet also. lee will drive to bluefield to play a non district team but is not willing to do that for a district game. where is the reasoning in that. i do not understand that part. because both schools use the same stadium. now if lee is not going to play bluefield anymore then so be it. but still the same distance to both to play.

graham has almost every year had to schedule no district teams to fill out their schedule and many have been in tenn and a team like gw danville and many of them have been over 2hours or more. i know this because my son is on the team and on many games they have gotten back well after midnight on sat morning i realize that travel is a problem for many teams that is a unfortunate part of highschool sports in swva.every other year graham plays the majority of its district games away so they travel also not as far granted but they could have to travel to both lee and carrol and grundy in the same year along with another team that they would have to pick up from wherever they can to fill out their schedule. which could be as far away as tenn or any where in va. wherever they can find a game. in any given year depending on how they could get the scheduling done they should at most only have 3 teams away. out of 10 that is not bad. i know as a parent of a ghs player if that was the case at ghs i would make the trips along with my son and the team. but that is me.

district or non district it is the same distance to travel unless they are afraid to play graham then yea do not come to bluefield. and they would only have to travel to bluefield only every other year. but then again your comment says it all that a district game is not as important to them as non district. because more than likely they would get beat just like beaver did to them last year.what is the difference in a district game with graham or a non district game with bluefield both would still be a loss for them.

hey br maybe you can tell them that if they do not get to play much for beaver there is a small school just south of beaver that would like for them to inroll as long as they have the grades. but really i hope that they do well for beaver. just not when you play graham.

you cannot talk about the graham line without adding them in the mix also. but i will say that graham did lose one kid to the fact that his parents had to move because of losing his job. his name is jeff miller he would have been good as a senior. my son should be better on the line next year also. he had to step in last year against grundy in the playoffs when martin hurt his ankle and he did a good job on the o line and he also had to step in again against gretna when another lineman went out with a injury and both were in the second quarter. he is stronger now and a little bigger i think around 240 lbs or so. but i feel that he needs to work a lot harder this summer to get faster on his feet. but the rest of the line will and should be much better this season. they just need to play together. you also have justin bradshaw and martins brother both who are big and strong linemen but young also. guess we will have to wait and see when 2 a days start in august.

then explain to me trumpet why did lee schedule bluefield high school and not graham. look at grahams swd schedule every other year graham has to travel to all but one swd school to play them. i still do not understand why lee played beaver and says that it is to far to play graham. same distance to the football field. they would only more than likely have to travel to 3 teams a year and if they got the schedule right not the longest trips in the same season like graham has to. granted not as far as lee would have to but hopfully in a few more years you guys will have a completed 4lane road which would make the trip a little easier.

just a guess but i would say about 1/2 live within that radius, but also remember tazewell county has 4 highschools also. and i was not knocking where lee is i have been there many times granted the population is scattered out but still i think lee has as many kids as ghs and i think there are several prisions in that area for employment which helps with students also. tell me this why would lee high drive to bluefield wv to play the beavers but not drive to bluefield va to play graham high. about 3 miles or so between the two schools and both use the same stadium. makes me wonder about their reasoning for not wanting to play graham.

as for myself i would just like to keep carroll county in the swd it is and will be good for graham and as far as the drive not to many teams travel as much as graham does now and then for a game as far as greenville tenn. for one and for other teams in tenn over the years. graham does not seem to mind the travel like other teams do.granted roads might be better for those games but i do not know if there are any more worse roads to have to travel than route 52 to play mount view highschool in welch wv. the road to martinsville is not a bad road compared to 52, i have driven that road many times and it is a good drive for sure but a good road.

i do not know much about the lpd but i would say that vhs is like some of the schools now days looking to play a schedule or in a district where they can win most of the time and not have to play tough teams. that is just my opinion and it is not worth much.

you do not get much more rural than graham with a town that has a population of not more than 6,000 people but yet year in and year out graham finds schools to play that are from the cities that you say carroll county would not be a good thing for them. look over the years of ghs football teams like greenville tenn elizabethon pardon the spelling gwdanville and others and we have held our own with them. i do not see carroll county trying to play that kind of team. and years ago graham did play gate city in the old swd and had good seasons also so to say that they would not get out of the regionals in 1a get real. even as small as ghs and grundy are they are to be commended for staying at the level of play that they do. that is why they win year in and year out. i know that a team like carroll county would love it if graham and grundy and tazewell would go to 1a then they would not have to play these teams again.

several of the line will be bigger this year one i know for sure is bigger is # 70 he is now close to 240 and stronger and he did a good job last year when he had to go in and play for martin in the grundy game and again in the game against gretna. and concidering that he has not gotten a lot of playing time over the past 3 seasons he did a good job and i feel that he will do much better this year being bigger and stronger than last year. granted he does not have tons of playing time but has made the best of what he has.

hard to say some say it was vhs that did not want him but no noe knows for sure except for carlock and vhs either way graham keeps him it looks like

vhs lost their chance at maybe one of the best highschool coaches in swva in coach carlock from ghs. though we here in bluefield va are glad that coach is staying at graham. it would be very difficult to replace a coach with his qualities.

that is what i have said there is more to kids coming to graham than just to play sports a lot has to do with the education also

from what i had heard graham would not let him inroll at ghs because of his grades also

like you said some kids leave a lesser program to go to a better program and at graham it has been a very good program and napper knew that bradshaw was there and still wanted to come to graham. a lot of it has to do with the school itself not just football. all i can say is for people to watch for graham to have a good offense this year with more backs to run from different sets.kids transfer to schools for other reasons not just sports. i always try not to knock a kid just because he transfered to another school and to say that he is not good enough to start for beaver who knows he just might have been able to we will never know for he is now a gman and if he gains a little more size the really watch out for him.

hey jimmy he is that good he just wanted to come to graham because of the quality of the school system in tazewell county. people had better watch out for him and the rest of grahams backfield they should be just as good if not better this year because teams will not have just one back to look for coming out of the backfield in graham. also he just might have liked the program at graham better. what can you say about grahams qb situation over the past several years with the matthews brothers, guess you feel that they were not good enough to play for beaver also. they came from the west va side and have a brother that plays basketball for the beavers. i think they could start for any highschool program. so just because kids come to graham from the west va side does not mean that they are not good players or that they could not play for the beavers.

the bristol paper did not have graham winning the game they said that the only way that graham would win was if bradshaw scored 6 td's and graham had the article on the locker room before the game. and yes we lost in the playoffs but to the state champion and to a team that i doubt that many teams in the state could have beat last year even the golden wave. i do not know if you went to that game but grham showed a lot of class in that game. they never gave up and made it a very close game. in the end we lost no excuses for that. we were beat by a great team.i do not know where you get the voodoo idea but any time a team tends to think that they are better than another team they start to overlook them and comments in papers and on message boards give the kids more to work for to prove that they are better than others seem to think. it is called motivation not voodoo. and many people did pick grundy to beat graham especially after the first 2 losses last year and with the loss of our qb.

you might be right about the end of the game but graham has a lot of talent still in the backfield and a very strong sophmore class for next season and they should not lose much with the loss of bradshaw just that the yardage will be devided among several backs and ends not just the one like last several years.the young kids that played against grundy in the playoffs did very good against a very talented group of kids from grundy and they are back next year and some are bigger and stronger and faster as linemen. i will not say that graham will beat grundy or beaver but like i said no one should take it for granted that because bradshaw is no longer there that graham will be a pushover. it will just take more effort from the kids that are there.

the young linemen that had to step up and play against grundy in the playoffs and against gretna did step up and make the plays that were asked of them i know this because the two of them that i know one is my son and another was a junior that had not got to play much and in both they played from the 2nd quarter to the end of the game and did what was asked of them. now as far as my son i feel that he could have done much better but that is because i am a lot harder on him than i am others. but still he made the blocks and did very good on the pass blocking and he had not played a lot during the last couple years because of the kids that were there.

i said i hope that bluefield overlooks graham not that they would. most people are counting graham out because we lost bradshaw and a lot feel that graham does not have anyone to replace him. and that is what i hope that all teams do have the opinion that without bradshaw graham is not a good team. if teams do that then graham will suprise many teams. i do not expect coaches of the teams to let their teams do that. so do not get your shorts in a wad thinking i said that the blfd wv team will overlook graham. people got all over graham fans here when we defend graham and i will continue to defend my school just like i expect you to but as far as for me i do not take what people say personal it is just their opinion and for the most part i do not know who they are and they do not matter to me in the long run. as for you i had respect for you but with your comments now about me getting real and how graham fans jumped you last year over your opinion well maybe you need to develope a thicker skin and not worry so much what others opinions are because in the long run that is what they are a persons individual opinion. not one time in my post did i have anything bad to say about you unlike you telling me to get off my hes counting graham out trip because i did not say that you are counting graham out but that i hope that is what others do next season. so please get away from your thought that everyone from graham is against you they just reply to statements that you make and defend their school just like you do and others from blfd wv do as we all should. i expect nothing less from each fan base.

since i have been reading this message board i have always had respect for you but to say that you are not going to get into a "p" contest you already did that by saying that the young kids at graham have not played in a game like graham bluefield well for one thing a lot of them played in a game that was just as big the graham gretna game. a few had to step up in that game and play for kids that were hurt in the game and it was a very big game and even though we lost the kids did very good so they do have some big game experience but like you said it is only may and we have a long way to go until august but never count out graham, i hope that bluefield does though then they will get caught by the gmen and their young kids.

i wish the new coach at tazewell all the luck in the world with all the things that seem to happen at ths. just not when they play graham. i do hope that he turns the program around.

if consolidation ever happens in tazewell county the first would more than likely be pocahontas with graham and in the future the county could possibly look at only 2 highschools in the county one in the eastern end and one in the western end and i feel that games would be played at the new highschool because the county would more than likely have to build new high schools for that type of consolidation as far as competing with other larger schools all county schools for the most part already do that now so if they could get over the rivalry of the schools when consolidation did happen and play as one the teams could be very good, but this is just my opinion.