Home Sweet Home

Ever since opening night when the Rocky Mount Gryphons jumped out to a 43-0 lead on 4-A East Forsyth, the feeling in the Gryphon Nation was that anything less than a No. 1 seed would be a letdown.

Even though we feel we are No. 1 in the east, it took a drawing with West Craven to make it happen.

The Gryphons got that No. 1 seed and a date with the 2-8 Cardinals of Jacksonville High, which is a playoff foe from out of our 4-A past.

The big prize is that whoever wins the east 3-A will have to win it by beating Rocky Mount at the Rocky Mount Athletic Complex, where the Gryphons have not lost at home since Dec. 5, 2005 to Western Alamance in the eastern 3-A finals.

As long as the Gryphons win, they will play in front of the home folks. A victory Friday and they would play host to the winner of the Beddingfield-Oxford Webb (a possible return for former RM head coach John Hammett) game.

If they win four straight at home, they will have a date at high noon on Dec. 13 with the western berth winner in Winston-Salem at the old Groves Stadium, which is now called BB&T field until someone offers more money for the naming rights.

SouthWest Edgecombe, the NEW 6's No. 2 seed, will have a home game against South Granville Friday. SouthWest is the only team in the 3-A bracket to play both West Craven and Rocky Mount and if it wins its first two games , it would get a rematch first with West Craven - assuming all teams are still alive, and an eastern final is possible against SWE.

Nash Central, having won Friday, is the luckiest team in the 3-A bracket. Yes, this year they are a 3-A playoff team. Fike, which had a ADM of 1244, drew the AA bracket and Nash Central with a 1243 stayed in the small A.

So we have to assume Fike is the last team in the 3-AA and Nash Central is the first team that qualified as a 3-A school. Their Bulldogs' first-round game will be at Kinston.

Remember, I said a couple of days ago that who ever got Nash Central was getting a 7-win team, but because of the two forfeits, it is disguised as a 5-win squad. Kinston is the unlucky team that drew the Bulldogs.

Fike, as I said, is in the 3-AA and travels Friday to Asheboro in the first round.

Southern Nash is the most disappointed team in the league as they failed to get in with four wins.

Rocky Mount is not the only local team that will enjoy their confines of home. Tarboro is the No. 1 seed in the east in the NCHSAA 2-A bracket and have drawn Pasquotank from Elizabeth City in the opening round.

I understand that Jacksonville is in a 3-A school in a 4-A/3-A league and they are seeded as a No. 3 in its league, but there is something wrong when a four-win team like Southern Nash sits and Jacksonville plays.

It's the way the split leagues are looked at by the NCHSAA. I will use Hertford County as an example. Hertford County lost to Northeastern ,which is a 2-A school in that league. Northeastern got the No. 1 seed as the 2-A representative and Hertford County got a top seed as the 3-A rep from their league.

It seems to me that Hertford County should have been a No. 2 in their league. That is one of the screwy rules that I think needs to be changed.

When looking at Jacksonville, it finished seventh in its 4A/3-A league, dead last, but go as the No. 3 seeded 3-A school. A seventh place team in their league is in and a No. 5 in our league, Southern Nash, is out.

Go figure!

Lauren and Terrell

As I have told you, my cousin Lauren Doughtie won her first college golf tournament about a month back.

This week she was in Tampa Florida trying to make the LPGA's Futures tour which is the minor leagues of LPGA golf. I am proud to say out of the 252 golfers who tried to make the tour Lauren finished seventh which means she has made the tour.

However, she will not declare herself as a professional until sometime during the summer after she graduates from N.C. State. A couple of weeks back, Lauren hurt her wrist in a tournament in Chapel Hill which will require surgery. This means she will miss the rest of the spring golfing season as she recovers from surgery.

If Lauren had of declared to turn pro, she would by finishing seventh in the Futures tour qualifying tournament received her first check for playing golf.

I think she is planning on waiting until after she has another shot at the U.S. Women's Amateur before turning pro.

Now for Terrell Hudgins:

Going into Saturday's game against Western Carolina ,Terrell needed 37 yards to break the all- time career yardage receiving record at Elon.

What is the importance of this record in the history of Elon University? It is the last receiving record at Elon that Terrell Hudgins name is not at the top of the list.

If it has anything to do with a receiving record in a game Terrell owns it. If it has anything to do with receiving record for a season Terrell owns it and Saturday the last career record that Terrell didn't already own became his.

Terrell tried the best he could to make this career yardage total with a big splash but his first catch of the day for a 79-yard touchdown catch was called back for offensive holding.

In the second quarter, he had to settle for a 39-yard catch his first grab of the day to break the record by two yards.

In order to keep the rest of the game from being a complete bore for Terrell now that he has no more Elon Record to break his seventh catch of the game was good for 13 yards which gave him 106 yards in the game. That broke the Southern Conference total yardage receiving record.

Now remember that the Southern Conference is the league where State, Carolina, Duke and Wake use to call home in the first half of the 20th century.

Terrell finished the day with seven catches which gives him 262 for his career. He is 38 short of the all-time FCS record of 300 in a career. Terrell has two regular season games and ever how many playoff games than Elon will get to break the record this year. We are talking what use to be a Division II record.

So Terrell has gone past Elon records. He still has a few Southern conference records to get but now he is after all time records in college football

Also Terrell broke the career Southern Conference record of 18 games getting at least 100 in a game.

I think we have to go back to Phil Ford and Buck Williams to see a Rocky Mount player have the impact on his college sport the way Terrell has.


He was the North Carolina High School Athlete of the Year in 2005. He excelled in football basketball and baseball.

The only major college to offer Terrell a football scholarship was East Carolina and off to Greenville he went.

The visit did not last long as it became apparent that being a D-I quarterback was not in the cards for the pirates.

Transferring to Elon it didn't take long there either before he found himself split out away from the backfield at wide receiver.

Terrell found a home at wide receiver and from his very first game Elon had found maybe there best football player in the history of the school.

That is not to shabby considering that Elon won two national NAIA championship back to back in the late 70s.

Terrell will have a decision to make come this spring as he will be eligible for the NFL Draft. It is hard to believe but he still has one more year at Elon if he chooses to do so.

Not bad for a player that wanted to be a college quarterback.