Marty Kirkland
EVERYWHERE —
As Johnny Cash, among others, once sang, I’ve been everywhere, man. OK, not everywhere, but I covered quite a bit of territory in Murray and Whitfield counties on Friday night in a quest to see a whole lot of high school football.
Why now? Why not? The schedule isn’t going to get any friendlier than it was Friday, when all five area public high schools were either at home or making a short trip to see another local team. (Sorry, Christian Heritage, but a trip to Marietta would have made an already “Cannonball Run”-esque circuit impossible.)
The plan was pretty simple. See parts of all four games, which I worried would be hard enough. Try to see at least one big play, if not a touchdown, at each site, which I worried would be even harder.
But equipped with little more than a notebook, a tape recorder, a couple of pens and a ‘96 Honda Accord packing a weak air conditioner and a pretty good Whiskeytown CD, I made my bid. A little after 7 p.m., the trip started ...
• At North Murray’s Mountaineer Stadium, where the home team’s first varsity game took just moments to give me the first big play of the night when Heritage-Catoosa fumbled the opening kickoff and Austin Carter recovered. North Murray had the ball in the red zone before you could spell Mountaineer, but the bearded guy in the coonskin cap was disappointed when Izzy Hernandez’s 31-yard field goal pushed wide right four plays later.
The Generals eventually settled down for a 27-7 win, just the second since starting their program two years ago, but North Murray fans had enjoyed an early jolt. Anyway, at 7:34 I had my big play and little time to putter around, so by way of 225 and Georgia 2, I made my way toward ...
• Northwest Whitfield, where as Bruins radio broadcaster Stephen Gregg told his listeners as I raced the sun and the clock, crossing the Conasauga River at 7:57 p.m., it was 4-0 Lambert, and “No, that’s not a baseball score.”
I was a bit worried about my pace at this point, but made it to the school’s parking lot a little after 8 p.m. By the time I got from my car to the stadium, it was 11-0 midway through the second quarter. I had about as much luck as the Bruins finding the end zone in my effort to spot a big play, but after catching a couple minutes of the halftime show, I was hitting Reed Rd. and heading south to ...
• Southeast Whitfield, where the Raiders were hosting Murray County. It was 8:45 p.m. by the time I left and I was having serious doubts about the quest. I was relieved to hear Dalton broadcaster Randall Davidson come back from a long commercial break to say Dalton’s band had not yet taken the field at halftime — meaning my final game was moving slow enough to give me hope.
Arriving at Raider Stadium at 9:10 on the real clock and with 11:07 left in the third quarter — Southeast led 18-6 — I caught a touchdown dash up the middle by quarterback Levi Sams. It was 9:25, and that was enough to get me going to ...
• Harmon Field, where as Davidson let us know in radio land, the Cats weren’t enjoying the third quarter.
I learned early on in my time here at The Daily Citizen that when covering a Dalton home game, your best bet is to park it at the office and hotfoot it to the stadium. That was still the plan, but my footspeed gave me concerns. (I’m not saying I’m slow, but when they timed us in the 40-yard dash in P.E., the coaches put away the clock and got out a calendar.)
But I was at Harmon Field by 9:45 and missed almost none of the fourth quarter, when I hoped to see one of the energetic finishes Calhoun-Dalton has given in recent years. But there were more calls for people to move illegally parked cars than big plays for the Cats, and the Yellow Jackets nursed a two-touchdown lead for much of the final period.
It wasn’t a great night for the area. There were more wins than losses, and the guys from out of town rode home happy for the most part. I didn’t see a big play everywhere, but I made it everywhere — and obeyed most of the traffic laws. I didn’t see a lot of football anywhere, but I saw a little everywhere.
On a late August night in Northwest Georgia, that’s a pretty good joyride.
Marty Kirkland is Sports Editor of The Daily Citizen. You can write to him at martykirkland@daltoncitizen.com.
