History surrounds Beaver/Graham...

[Bluefield_Rules 46]

http://www.bdtonline.com/articles/2005/08/25/sports/01thursrivals.txt

 

History permeates Beaver-Graham rivalry

Posted: Thursday, Aug 25, 2005 - 01:37:50 am EDT

By TOM BONE

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

 

BLUEFIELD - The borderline of the Bluefields will be buzzing with traffic and talk this Friday evening as the Graham G-Men and Bluefield Beavers renew a football rivalry dating back to 1911.

 

By the thousands, enthusiastic fans will make their way to the cinderblock home of both teams on the hill overlooking Stadium Drive, only yards from the Virginia state line.

 

The young men will strap on their helmets and coaches will remind them again that when the whistle blows, it will be a football game.

 

But they will know it is a spectacle with a long, storied history.

 

A lot has changed since last year's 48-21 win by a senior-laden Bluefield team. No one could have known that it would be the last Beaver-Graham game for Coach Glynn Carlock Sr., who was an assistant at BHS before a 31-year tenure in charge of the G-Men.

 

The Beavers used the game as a springboard to an undefeated state championship year. The breaks went Bluefield's way, by all accounts.

 

"It was just one of those situations where everything went right for us in crucial situations, and everything went wrong for them," Bluefield coach Fred Simon said that night a year ago.

 

Graham has had its night in the stadium lights as well.

 

In 1995, said unofficial statistician Tim Kish, Bluefield jumped out to a 20-0 first-half lead and Graham came back to win 26-20 en route to the Virginia championship of Group AA Division 3.

 

The G-Men got national notice in 1989 by starting the season with eight straight shutout wins, beginning with a 25-0 rout of Bluefield. Graham earned another Virginia championship that season.

 

In 1961, the Virginia-side team beat Bluefield 32-25, the first loss pinned on Merrill Gainer as the BHS head coach. Gainer's teams had gone 21-0 the previous two years.

 

Beaver believers have their memories, too.

 

In 1967, Bluefield drove 77 yards with five minutes left in the game, with running back Pete Woods breaking a 6-6 tie for a 13-6 victory.

 

More recently, in 1991, a 30-yard touchdown pass with 23 seconds remaining gave Bluefield a shocking 6-4 victory.

 

And in 1962, both Bluefield and Graham marched onward from their season opener to win state championships, a feat rarely if ever duplicated by neighboring teams in high school football. The two teams have notched more than 300 victories each since the late 1950s, Kish said.

 

Bluefield holds a 33-14 edge in games played since 1957.