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Perfect chemistry, perfect season
The culmination of a perfect season, the team's first in more than 40 years, came in the form of a 45-0 victory over Irmo in the Class 4A Division I title game Saturday in Columbia. The season started with 2-a-day practice sessions in the sweltering mid-90s summer heat and the typical pre-season speculation. "How do you think we'll do this year?" Indians fans asked each other as the first game neared. And it wasn't a question being asked just by local fans. Other folks were also interested in how the Indians would do. I was on my way home from a motorcycle trip to Georgia in early August and stopped for gas in Greenville. I approached the counter to pay the clerk and as I handed him the cash, he rung up the purchase, handed me my change and then asked, "So aren't they going to be pretty good this year?" The question took me by surprise. "Excuse me?" I said. He pointed to the "School of Champions" logo on the gray Tshirt I was wearing. I had forgotten it was there. "Gaffney?" he asked again. "Aren't you guys going to be pretty good in football again this year?" I quickly reached into the back of my mind to recall what I knew and what I had heard about this year's team. "You know," I told him, "I think they are going to be pretty good. There's talk of an eventual national ranking." "Sounds about right," the clerk responded. Whether this year's team is a team of destiny or whether its success is attributable to the aforementioned perfect team chemistry, there is no disputing the fact that it is one of the best high school football teams ever. Gaffney dominated Saturday's game on both sides of the ball. The offense moved with precision and power, seemingly taking whatever chunks of real estate it wanted whenever it wanted, moving at will up and down the Williams-Brice Stadium turf so fast and frequently that it made the Gamecock painted on the center of the field dizzy. Defensively the Indians stifled the vaunted Irmo ground game, holding standout running back Mario Carter to just 18 yards on eight carries in the first half and only 75 yards on 17 carries for the game. Perfect chemistry? Yeah, you could say that. And a perfect game plan. And a perfect season. "All of 'em are special," Gaffney High Head Coach Phil Strickland told me after the game, nodding toward the celebrating players. "This was a really fun team to coach. They like coming to practice and they love playing the game. I've never had a group of kids who enjoyed playing football more than this bunch. "All of our coaches came up with the perfect game plan and the kids executed it," he continued. "You know, our offensive line was our biggest question mark but as the season progressed they grew and kept getting better and better and now you see the results." But then, that's the mark of a champion - the hunger and drive to constantly get better. On Gaffney's opening drive - a 60-yard, 7-play march that chewed about seven minutes off the clock - the Indians twice converted fourth downs, showing a dogged determination to set the tone of the game. "Those two fourth-down conversions were very big," Strickland said. "We got down there in their territory and we wanted to get on the board first." And they did. And the rest is history. Welcome home the conquering heroes. Nice going guys. Congratulations on a perfect season. (Klonie Jordan is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger. You can contact him via e-mail at editor@gaffneyledger.com) |
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