Superlative efforts have gotten Beavers, Mavericks to tonight's football finals
Friday, November 30, 2007
By TOM BONE- The Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Tonight a new champion for West Virginia Class AA football will be crowned in the chilly air of Wheeling. Whether you’re a rabid football fan or not, it says a lot about the work ethic of students and their coaches in our area that both teams in the title game are from Four Seasons Country.
The Bluefield Beavers and the James Monroe Mavericks have already made the region proud by working hard and displaying teamwork, sportsmanship and cool heads under stress.
Out of the 127 or so high schools in West Virginia that play football, only six still have their players in pads this week — and they’ll all be in Wheeling this weekend for what is modestly called the “Super Six playoffs.”
I intended to provide examples from my mental highlight reel of superlative moments I’ve witnessed from covering both Bluefield and James Monroe games this season. There are so many, though, I’d have to leave some out, no doubt incurring wrath from a bunch of parents. Well, maybe I will not get into too much hot water by recalling one recent example from each team.
One hit I’ll remember for a long time was planted by Bluefield senior Cory Copolo on a kickoff return by Scott High School last Friday night. Shayne Butcher’s heels went high into the sky as Copolo defined anew the meaning of a “pancake tackle.”
And the next night, on the home turf of defending state champion Wayne High School, I had a crystal-clear view as James Monroe sophomore cornerback John Ballengee got perfect position as a defender and jumped high into the cold air, picking off a pass attempt with 37 seconds left to keep the Pioneers from driving downfield for a possible game-winning score.
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Moments like those two make you forget completely about banging your head on a shelf in the Wayne press box at halftime, and about the salted pretzel in your stomach as it gets knotted up — the stomach this time, not the pretzel — in the excitement of a semifinal playoff game.
Before the game at Wayne, I was devouring my pretzel standing along a fence with a Monroe Countian. He told me that it was too bad the Mavericks’ runners were so banged up. He then advised me that “the word was” that James Monroe might go to a spread offense instead of their old-fashioned single wing.
I could not tell whether that was disinformation planted on purpose to unsettle the Wayne defensive staff, but it was hard to imagine coach David Witt changing course at that point and teaching the players how Pat White and Steve Slaton get it done for West Virginia University.
No, it was the single wing that has gotten James Monroe to the championship game. It’s the same style that Giles High School used, and they won the crown in their division of Virginia football a couple of years ago. Don’t tell me it can’t be done.
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Some may not realize this is not James Monroe’s first state championship game. The girls’ basketball teams were in three straight state title games, and won two, in the early 2000s.
That fact is also a leadup to mention one more sporting event I was privileged to cover this month. The day before Thanksgiving, the West Virginia Mountaineers women’s basketball team, ranked 18th in the nation at the time, took on No. 1 Tennessee at the Charleston Civic Center.
One statistic generated from that game is more significant than anybody’s rebound total or assist-to-turnover ratio. The attendance was 10,677 — announced as “the largest for a women’s basketball game in the history of the state of West Virginia.”
I would guess it’s the largest for any women’s sporting event within our borders. It was like a watershed moment for me.
The world has still got a long way to go before women’s sports are given equal status with the men, and before girls get equal practice time in the high school gym, and so on. And I’m very aware that more people watch NFL football than Olympic women’s volleyball.
In the early 1980s, I got to choose between announcing games for the men’s team and the women’s team at a local college. I knew others would be willing to announce the men’s games, but I figured that few if any would care to take on the assignment for the women.
I chose to give the women’s program my best effort, and I remain glad I did to this day.
There were often only 20 or 30 people in the stands for some of those games in the 1980s. To be surrounded by 10,667 was certainly a sign of progress.
Girls and women work hard at sports — just like football players. Get used to the idea.
