JGray

Everybody that got playing time made all district!!!

I want to personally thank all of you guys for your well wishes for our family. I know that Shelly and Slick and Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Ella greatly appreciate everything that the community has done and is doing to honor Tony. Please continue to keep the Blevins and Webster families in your thoughts. I can honestly say, that he is absolutely the best kid that I have ever been associated with. I may be a little bias but I have never in my life seen a kid that is always smiling, up-beat and as positive as Tony was. It definitely shows is how the communities of Mercer and Tazewell as well as surrounding counties have come together to honor such a wonderful young man. May he rest in peace and never be forgotten!!

I used to question stuff like this until I ended up having a few come my way here in Charlotte.

The same thing happened here in Charlotte 2 weeks ago. Independence and Rocky River were fighting as well as East Meck and Hickory Ridge.

You may not want to miss the Hough and MC game. It may be a classic, especially with all of the transfers that Hough got in this summer.

That conference is the best in the state from top to bottom. There are only 2 bad teams in the conference, those being Hopewell (0-8) and Lake Norman (2-7). North Meck and West Charlotte are also competitive to some extent and will make the playoffs and give that conference 6 teams to get in.

At what point does the Graham coaching staff gain an advantage in the coaching department? Will it take a state championship, a game without and 15 yard penalties, or what some would call a program changing win? If so, who would that program changing win be against. Graham has just as many wins as Richlands and Bluefield since 2015 when the coaching change occurred. Before I get bashed, let me note that I "KNOW" Coach Mance and Coach Simon are great coaches.

No. That was the Tazewell County High Warhawks building until it changed to the junior high. My grandmother told me that their school sat up on the side of the hill until they got the new (TCHS) built.

Genoa was the Junior high (7-9) and Park Central was the high school. Unless Genoa was the high school before Park Central. In Bluefield, Virginia, my grandmother graduated from Graham Colored High school in 1944 which was in our neighborhood before Tazewell County High.

Last night (Tuesday, June 19), the Mecklenburg County Commission approved a County budget totaling $1.7 billion, including increased support for the students, teachers, staff and schools of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and pre-K programs in the county. CMS released the message below this morning. See original CMS budget request at ourkidsneedus.org. Details (from the Charlotte Observer 6-20-18) include: “The budget increases funding to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools by $31.1 million, including $11.8 million for raises for locally funded employees and $6.9 million from the current budget for increased local salary supplements for teachers and staff. CMS had requested nearly $40 million in extra funding. It also continues a recent emphasis on early childhood education, including $9 million for enough new pre-kindergarten classrooms to serve 600 children. "I think absolutely this is the right thing to do," CMS Superintendent Clayton Wilcox told WBTV, the Observer's news partner. "I think county commissioners are being brave in stepping forward."

Ike now has an offer from Rutgers as well.

The difference in the game will be the depth of North Meck. Vaud, Jae, and Tristan are not the only players that North has. GC has guards that can play too. The issue will be on the block and not letting Tristan get going. Vaud doesn't want to score but Tristan and Jae will score in bunches. They will run about 9-10 deep with not much of a let off.

Please elaborate on this statement.

Lol.. Sory for adding the g. I was referring to Stacy Ervin.

Is McClung the best player in SWVA since Erving or Talford?

Good day to everybody. Sunday April 30th @ 2:00 at Tazewell Middle School, we will be hosting a charity basketball game to raise money for various charities. Of those charities will be my newly founded non profit, The T.E.A.M. Gray Foundation. The game is called the "Warhawk Classic" to pay homage to our family members that attended Tazewell County High School. Team Cross Tha Trax will consist of former G-Men and G-Girls and we will be playing against Team Shake Rag which will consists of former Tazewell Bulldogs. Tony Palmer and Billy Banks will lead our team as the coaches. Our roster will consist of the following G-Men and G-Girls. Taymon Cooke, Ty Gray, Paris Ballard, Ajai Oakes, Reed Oakes, Omi Oakes, Tammy Oakes, Robert Henry, Mike Henry, Maegan Henry, Ryan French, Jay Gray, Ahmad Bradshaw, Ht Matthews, Dwight Braxton, Fred Adams, and TJ Carper. Please come out and have fun and help support a good cause.

OK. Our games can end in the first half if the score difference becomes 9. That would relieve anyone from getting bigger leads and having to prolong the game well into the second half.

Is there no mercy rule? Here in Charlotte the game stops when another team is up by 9 goals.

From what I see via the net, McClung is legit. He currently holds 9 DI mid major offers. That should change with another solid summer on the AAU circuit. Ervin also has 2 offers as of now. Any kid that has these types of offers can play. D1's aren't knocking if you can't play.

From my understanding, he has transferred.

Yes. The "IF POSSIBLE" refers to coaching as well as players. Look at Graham '01. They had the athletes to run their spread very effectively and they did so. They ran it and threw is very well out of that formation. HT Matthews threw for 2000 yards and rushed for 1000 yards at QB and was 1st team All Sate with that group. (Belcher, Oakes, French, Bradhsaw, Jones, etc..) They also ran the bone effectively. After that year, "WE" started going back to the bone and a 2 back set at times with Rob and AB more than the spread because of the make up of the team. Our '93 team had enough speed to run a spread offense with myself, Mike Gregory, Jacob Dews, Brandon Banks and Shannon Hoops at wide out but we rarely ran anything other than the bone. The 4 of us, if I'm not mistaken still hold the 4 x 100 meter school record by the way. I say this because I still think that we were collectively faster than many groups before and after us but we rarely used it to our advantage in the passing game. Our coaches at that time hadn't learned the concept of the spread so we didn't run it and Graham football was still very successful during those "WISHBONE' years. Schemes should be adjusted each year based on the personnel that you have on the field. This can only happen though if the coaches are knowledgeable of different approaches. I think that coaches should attend as many coaching clinics as they can afford to learn more from other coaches.

Times have changed and the evolution of the spread offense has taken over if you have the athletes to do it. I know that I'm aging myself but from the time we played with the Chargers, all the way through high school we had a 3 back set and ran the ball to no end. In middle school we ran the wishbone just as the high school did and when we transitioned into high school everything was easier for all of us. The kids at Graham right now, ran a spread offense in pee wee and midget football with the Chargers, so I agree that the system needs to correlate somehow all the way through. "IF POSSIBLE"

That is my identity. lol.. and I appreciate the compliment.

Your area little league coaches should be knowledgeable about the game and they should be able to set the ground work to teach them the needed fundamentals of the game. Hopefully this continues until they leave them and join the middle school programs. If the middle school coaches are worth anything, they continue to build on what should have been taught in little league. As a middle school coach if you're not preparing your kids for high school then you are failing them. They should be preparing them mentally as well because lots of kids stop playing as they transition from MS to HS due to not being able to handle the discipline part as a 9th grader.

How did my G-Men perform this afternoon? I heard they were flying around and getting to the ball on defense. Any truth to that.