Marty Kirkland: Valued tradition strong at Dalton

By Marty Kirkland

One of the things that separates high school football from the pros and college is the level of ownership fans have in their teams.

That’s not to say there aren’t some pretty zealous supporters at those levels of the game. Plenty of NFL fans have rooted for their hometown franchise since they were old enough to follow the flight of a pigskin; many of those who fill college stadiums on Saturdays are current students or alumni.

But when the stands fill up on Friday nights for high school games, a lot of the people in the bleachers can say they were once the ones on the field playing for that team. And that’s especially true at a program like Dalton, where tradition is valued and the ties to Big Red go across several generations.

So it’s no surprise to talk to a Dalton fan and hear they were once a player. But the Catamounts are making a special call to their former stars for this Friday night, when they’ll host Hiram in the Region 7-4A championship game, as they celebrate “One Golden DHS Team.”

Dalton is requesting that all players, coaches and administrators involved with the team during its streak of 50 winning seasons — it reached that number this year when the Cats beat Rome, 35-21, on Oct. 22, having started humbly enough when Alf Anderson led the Cats to a 5-4-1 mark in 1960 — turn out on Friday night to be recognized and honored in a special ceremony at halftime.

If you’d like more information on the ceremony, feel free to contact Dalton athletic director Ronnie McClurg — an assistant during much of the streak and the coach from 2001-2007 — at (706) 876-4872 or Diane Gregory at (706) 876-4804.

Related to that, The Daily Citizen is working on a special publication commemorating Dalton’s streak and we’re doing lots of interviews with those who played a part during the five decades of winning to document the run comprehensively and accurately. Hopefully, we’ll have the chance to talk with some of you on Friday.

But because our time may be limited then and some of you may not be able to make it, here’s a general call to be in touch with us if you’re a former player who suited up during the streak or even a devoted fan who saw many of those wins. If you’d like to share your memories with us — and we’d love to hear them — please write to sports editor Larry Fleming at daltoncitizen.com or give him a call at (706) 272-7734.

As they do with their team each Friday night, we want the Dalton faithful to be a big part of this publication.

• It’s not worth much more than pride, but this year’s football Cats are getting some love in the polls as we near the threshold from the regular season to the state playoffs.

With one week remaining before Dalton (7-2 overall, 5-1 in Sub-region 7A-4A) hosts a first-round Class 4A state playoff matchup against either the No. 3 or 4 seed from Region 6 — that depends on how things go against Hiram — the Cats are ranked in their classification’s poll by The Associated Press (No. 10), GaSports.com (9) and Georgia High School Football Daily (10).

Friday’s opponent has been in the rankings for a little while now, though, and the undefeated Hornets (9-0, 5-0 in 7B-4A) are fifth in all three of those same polls.

And for those planning ahead, reserved seats for Dalton’s state playoff game will be on sale from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday in the high school’s lobby for current season ticket holders; they’ll go on sale the following day at the same time to everyone else. Tickets are $8 each.

• Both of Dalton’s cross country teams are headed for this weekend’s Class 4A state meets in Carrollton, as is Murray County’s Josh Stanley, while Southeast’s Josue Limas will run in the Class 3A boys meet on Saturday morning.

A preview of the 4A races at gatfxc.com pegs both Dalton squads as possible top 10 finishers, with the boys perhaps pushing for something in the top half of that segment; if the Cats can stick together Saturday, their chances look to be pretty good to fulfill that prediction. The girls need their two breakout runners, junior Carina Nieto and freshman Bekah Houston to hang with each other and turn in strong performances, just as they did while finishing second and third at last Saturday’s Region 7-4A meet.

Stanley’s official time of 17:13 (on a 5-kilometer course) for fifth place among individuals at the region meet is the best time this year among area runners listed in gafxc.com’s rankings. He has battled illness this year, but has logged the miles and has the race instincts to put together a performance that could surprise some around the state.

Limas, who like Stanley is a senior gearing up for his final chance for a big finish at state, broke the 18-minute mark in the Region 6-3A meet and turned in a personal best in that race.

That’s a good sign heading into the season-ending race.

It’s hard to predict what will happen at Carrollton, however. By the end of the season, cumulative injuries start to take their toll, and it seems every year some team is hit with illness as the weather has turned cooler and colds and the flu start to spread.

The other factor is the hilly layout in Carrollton. If runners haven’t trained for that throughout the season, it can be a shock to their pacing and planning for when to attack.

My high school coach’s ability to find a rare hilly spot in South Georgia on which to train — thanks to a friend of his who owned a piece of property with some lime sinks on it — helped many of runners prep for that challenge and do much better than many of those from our area who qualified for state.

That search for hills isn’t something high school cross country runners in Northwest Georgia really have to worry about, though. Here, the hills pretty much find you.