Last Holiday

Most folks, Labor day is the last holiday off until Thanksgiving. When I look back over my career being in a booth on Friday night there have not been many Friday nights during that time that I have been calling a game somewhere. That means that the teams I have called have made it far into the playoffs.

This Friday night Rocky Mount travels to Hertford County which before 1988 was Ahoskie High. I spent twenty two years of of barking out touchdowns for the Cougars and Bears. In the small pond of Ahoskie, I was a big fish when it related to being in the know of how the team was going to do this year. In fact my first wife hated to go out to dinner in Ahoskie because she knew somebody was going to ask me something about Ahoskie football. Once that started then it was non-stop football talk.

Five years after I had left , I had car trouble once and took my car to the shop. The repairman first comment to me was about how the team was going to be that up coming year. So folks relied on me because I was pretty good being able to tell them how we were or were going to be. After the last game in 1978 after Ahoskie went 8-2 and back then only the conference champion made the playoffs I predicted that they would play for the state championship in 1979. They finished 13-2 and hosted South Point in the state championship game.

This Friday night will be my first game back in the football booth to actually cover the game. I have been to many games as a spectator but this will be my first covering it on radio. Back in 1977 when the stadium was first used, the press box was not built until 1978. About thirty volunteers spent their summer nights and built that press box. I was one of them so the press box on the visitors side is very special to me.

Long since I have been gone there is another press box on the home side, so right now I don't know which one I will be in. Almost all the people who worked the pressbox back then are all gone. Johnny Overton who did the score board. Steve Lassiter on PA, Daryl Lee, Pete Overton. None of the old guys will be there. Times have changed.

So far this year neither Hertford County or Rocky Mount have beaten anyone to make them jump up and down and shout. Friday night's game is going to tell us all a lot about how far both of these teams will be playing in November.

For the first time in my life I will pull against Hertford County in in a place that I helped build. I know I will have butterflies just like I was playing.