Life Is All About Timing

Does any body remember the finish of the 2002 football season. Rocky Mount blew a twenty seven point lead at Wakefield and after the game there was dissension among the assistant coaches with the way we blew the lead.

By the end of the school year the head coach moved on. I really don't think there were many tears with the change. One coach is hired, wait a minute then unhired. It's time for football practice and a week before up steps a hall of fame coach. I am not even sure there were many in Rocky Mount blue and gold even knew the name of B W Holt.

Right off the bat the coaches and players accept him. There is a boat load of talent that needed a captain. Five straight wins and if there was any doubt about whether the man could coach he had won every one over from the players, coaches and fans.

Spinning forward six years. End of the year, a change in the coach that nobody wanted to see. A new man is in town. He is faced with a group of players that were now fully vested in the Holt winning ways. That boat load of talent is half empty. Some coaches not happy with the coaching pick, jump ship.

A couple of early wins do nothing to prove to the fan base that Dickie Schock can coach this team,
Injuries mount. First quarter of the first game the best receiver is lost. By halftime of game two the best defender is out. Game five brings on a 2-3 record and twelve people side lined by injuries.

There is dissension in the player ranks . A coaching moved that may have changed the entire season occurred off of the field. The most disgruntled player is suspended from the team. He is not kicked off but give a list of demands that he must meet if he wants to ever continue to be a Gryphon football player.

The injured slowly get healthy and the disgruntled find that being a Gryphon is more important than causing trouble. The players now that they have seen Schock as their coach for a full three months are buying into his method. It's not that much different from Holt's

You can see their play on the field has improved for about five weeks now. Let's don't get any ideas that Raleigh on December 12th is a possibility just yet. I can tell you this. This team is giving every thing they have. This is not a team that will beat any body 42-7. But they have proven the last three weeks that they are not out of any game in the fourth quarter.

It is easy to sit in the stands and make judgments base on what you think you see on Friday nights. The players on the field no longer have those judgments as they see every day on the practice field what it takes to be successful. Being successful is not always being 12-0 every season.

Next Friday night in all likely hood the Gryphons will be traveling to Four Oaks to take on the number one seed in the east 3-AA bracket. If you look at last year we are playing the Oxford Webb role and South Johnston is playing the role we had.


Webb came to Rocky Mount thinking they could win. I think we have a shot next Friday night. We now have a team that believes in their coach.