The press box on a Friday night

I realize that I can't remember things out of the past as well as I use to, but I believe that there was a first for me at Wilson Hunt Friday.

Morgan, the last of the Doughtie children who is a proud Gryphon freshman this year, was away at a church camp for the weekend at Lake Gaston.

As we waved bye to Morgan Friday afternoon and it was almost time to head out to meet Wes Bradshaw and Charles Alston for our road trip to Hunt, Pat (my beautiful wife) looks at me with these sad eyes and says, "well, I guess I will have to stay home all alone on a holiday Friday night."

Right away, my first thought is 'yep, that's too bad.'

I may look stupid, but looks aren't everything. I responded with a quick-thinking 'you know, we could go over to Parker's, and then over to the game.'

I still have heel marks on my chest as she ran over me heading to the car.

I called Wes and told him I would meet him at the game. You know the average person who eats at Parker's is over 50 years of age and is 60 pounds over weight. (insert my picture here). A large combination dinner and five quarts of sweet tea later, we arrived in the parking lot at Hunt High School.

Hunt High has an average-sized press box, but when you put three radio stations: WZAX 99.3 FM doing the call on its "Game of the Week", WLLY AM was doing Wilson County's "Game of the Week" and of course, AM Sports 1390 covering the Gryphons - there is a house full.

Both schools had their film crews, WHIG TV 17 was filming for its "Game of the Week." There was hardly any room for the PA man and the clock operator.

In order to make sure everything is in working order, you must set up the equipment about an hour before broadcast time. If everything works and there is no panic because a piece of equipment is not acting right, you sometimes have 45 minutes to catch up on all gossip from all of your friends from the other radio crews.

Pat went up with us to the press box with the intent to go sit on the Rocky Mount side as soon as someone she knew showed up. To say the least, it can be very entertaining in the press box as everyone asks question about players and some old stories pop up.

I think Pat enjoyed all the hub-bub in the box and stayed the whole game. I don't ever recall that she has ever been in a football press box with me while the game was in progress.

Hunt's JV cheerleaders came around just before the half and took orders for food. Somewhere along the way, I missed their visit, but to my surprise, a cheeseburger and fries appeared for me when they started unloading their goodies from the concession stand.

If you listened to the game last week, Kentucky Fried Chicken provides the food in the press box at Gryphon home games for everyone, and Wes got caught with a mouth full of biscuit coming out of a timeout. This time, it was my turn to be caught enjoying a burger when it was time for me to talk.

Do you get the sense that Wes and I can eat?

I think you will find that when a game is a blowout like the Hunt game was, it easy to tell who won by how long the post-game show is on the radio.

The Wilson County crew was off the air in about five minutes. Not much joy to pass around when the team you are covering is clobbered by 38.

WZAX's crew, being the "Game of the Week." was next to go. They will have more games for both schools later in the year.

The press box was deserted (what happened to that jammed press box) except for the extreme right side where we continued to expound on the Gryphons' victory.

A huge crowd at the game meant that even after a half-hour post game show, the parking lot was still trying to get clear as we finally made it out there.

Looking back, having my main squeeze in the press box with me made me feel like I was 20 again .... Ok, maybe 40.

Unfortunately, there's no Parker's to go to next week in Henderson!

Week 2 in the books

For the first time this year, all four Nash County high schools took to the field - the last Friday night in August with two winning and two coming home losers

Southern Nash opened its season, but came up on the short end of a14-8 score with Bunn. Bunn, which is a 2-A powerhouse, had all it could handle from the Firebirds. Even though it is a loss, this game may give Southern folks a reason to feel optimistic after this game.

A team that needs to just feel good about itself regardless of whether it wins or loses is Northern Nash. Tonight may have been one of those games that if the Knights are going to win a few games this year this was one of them. D. H. Conley prevailed 22-11. As a coach, you always want to carry something good out of every game whether you win or lose, and the Knights found a way to come up with 11 points tonight.

The team that made the biggest comeback tonight was Nash Central.

The Bulldogs were embarrassed by Tarboro a week ago, but they found a victory against Smithfield-Selma 28-20. Just maybe last week's humiliation at Tarboro wasn't as bad as it seemed because Tarboro pitched a shutout against Washington 35-0 Friday. People in the 2-A ranks had better pay attention to the Vikings.

I like to watch what people do as they continue their season. Looking at East Forsyth, they rebounded tonight in beating Winston-Salem Reynolds 37-16.

Now let's turn our attention to the Gryphons.

You have to give it to coach B.W. Holt. He knows how to make the Gryphons come out snarling.

Last week by the midpoint of the third quarter, the Gryphons had East Forsyth 43-0, and tonight a very good Hunt team was down 34-0 at the half.

What I really like about the Gryphons' starts is that the other side had "zero" on the scoreboard in both of those scores. In the second quarter tonight, many second-team players had good minutes even before the half against a team we could easily meet again in the playoff.

Even though East Forsyth scored 14 and Hunt was able to score only six, both games were pretty much over when the scores came against the Gryphon defense.

After two games, the Gryphons are averaging 43.5 points per ball game. Last year's team that played in 15 games could only ( I said only) muster 34 per contest.

Is this year's team better than the eastern final team of last year? If two games is enough to make a trend, then the answer is yes. Then why is this team better than last year?

Let's start with the defense. Last year's team had terrific defensive ends, but you can add the entire front four to that list this year. So far East Forsyth and Hunt are averaging just a tad over 2 yards per rushing attempt.

I hardly called any linebackers' names during tonight's game due to the fact that the front four were making all the plays.

It's hard to pass in a game when you jump to a 27-0 lead in the first quarter. So, the Gryphons did most of the passing in the second quarter. Last year was a total gamble putting the ball in the air, but the passing game is better this year.

It is scary to think at how well this team has started off. Tonight, the Gryphons didn't play chop liver but a top 10 3-A team in Hunt at its place.

I know many fans failed to see the first quarter. During a timeout after a Gryphon touchdown, we looked out the press box door and there was 200 or so people still in line trying to get in (metal detector screening slowed the process). It was 27-0 before most of those folks got through the gate.

We have another road game next week as the Gryphons travel to Northern Vance - a 29-7 loser to Southeast Raleigh tonight.

Travel with the team to Vance County. You just might be watching one of the best Gryphon teams ever.

Time will tell ....