How lucky can we be! Five years ago and about at this time of the summer, some guy from Montgomery County had just been named head football coach at Rocky Mount High School.
He wasn't in the running when RM's first pick didn't quite pan out. In the second go-round for a head coach, he was selected as the best of two options. The beginning of July is a hard time to find a coach, but the school had picked longtime Starmount football mentor B.W. Holt.
I called Holt up on the phone and asked if Wes (Bradshaw) and I could carry him out to lunch one day to talk over how we as a radio station, then we were on ESPN 1490 AM, could handle covering the Gryphons that year.
You see, when you watch the games on TV, the networks pay for the right to broadcast the games. So they come in and demand interviews and access to players and coaches that on the local level we can't afford to do. So when you hear B.W. before and after the game, he is doing it because it helps promote his players, not his wallet.
I asked to be able to get close enough to be able to hear him and his coaches teaching each weeks assignments for that game. He even granted me permission to sit in on the Sunday night film sessions when the coaches come up with the game plan for the next game.
The last three years I have be off doing the "Game of the Week" which means you cover two teams each week and after that week, cover two more next week. It is a lot harder to create relationships with players and coaches that way. I have been able to stay close to Gryphon football because I will be starting my fifth year doing its JV games as the PA announcer.
We were very impressed as we left Ryan's Steakhouse that afternoon after listening to B.W. talk. An announcer's dream is to ask a question and for the coach to say something besides yes or no.
He held court with us talking about life and football. Many fans now make it to the field after the games just to listen to B.W. talk to his team about just that - life and football.
How lucky can we all be in five years to win 57 games and 10 playoff contests?
We'll start this season out as the preseason No. 3-A team, which means nothing. RMHS' non-conference schedule is brutal. That's the way B.W. wants it. Nothing comes easy if it is worth anything.
We all are scared to death that B.W. will retire after any season now and go back to the mountains of Tennessee, his second home. Shoot, he has already retired once!
He and I did a TV show recently promoting the NFL development camps that he did during the summer and as we were leaving the studio, he made the comment to me that he wished he had of come to Rocky Mount when he was 30.
Don't we all!
