BillLindau

Pinecrest football

In sickness or in health, let's keep Patriot football
Moore County Independent, September 2006
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
The idea of scrapping a high-school football team is about the worst news its alumni can hear. And I'm happy Pinecrest will keep its season going, good or bad. The school made the right decision in not abolishing the team, even though low numbers and injured players could put the Patriots out of commission this year anyway. Besides, even if you're not a big football fan, you should bear in mind that public schools and colleges throughout the United States depend on the success of their football programs to generate revenue, not only for the athletic departments, but for the entire educational institutions.
Pinecrest athletic director John Buchholz (whom I've known since the last few years of old East Southern Pines) told the media the team had more than 90 players, with 44 freshmen in the program. There were six seniors and 14 juniors, a regional publication reported.
I'm afraid you can't have much of a football season with numbers like that. It would be tempting to call it quits. If you don't have enough players to field a team, then you don't have any other choice except to break up its program for the year. But we always have to think of the kids on the team. I mean, football is their lives, and I think the really dedicated players would rather go 0-10 than hang up their uniforms after just three bad games.
Pinecrest does have its moments, however. In 1987, the Patriots finished in the second round of the state playoffs. They edged out E.E. Smith 8-7 in the first round, then fell to the eventual state 4-A champions in Garner in the second round. That was the year Garner's roster included former Richmond Senior state title coach Hal Stewart and N.C. State star-to-be Anthony Barbour.
Pinecrest even beat Richmond one year. By a score of 26-25, I believe it was, in 1992.
Those who remember that game know there were, unfortunately, extenuating circumstances.
That extenuating circumstance being that Richmond's starting quarterback had gotten busted for a huge drug offense -- about $10,000 worth of cocaine. He didn't play in the game that night, and the whole Raider team was so demoralized. The coaches walked around with ashen looks, and none of them talked to me. The Richmond County Daily Journal ran the story of the young man's arrest on the front page.
But as far as the Patriot faithful were concerned, a win's a win.
That win also happened to be the Raiders' Homecoming football game. How many times does that happen at Richmond Senior High School.
It's not as if the school doesn't have that much athletic talent. Far from it. Patriot football has included some outstanding individuals who go on to play Division I football and even make the pros. My own class (1971) included three gridders who played in the ACC. Charles Waddell (that's right, the One and Only for those in the Pinecrest community who remember him) played three sports at the University of North Carolina and spent a season in the NFL. Joe Robinson played defensive back at N.C. State and Ernest Clark went to Duke. Dexter Pride, who graduated a year later, played in the NFL, too. And one year, six Pinecrest alumni received football scholarships to the prestigious Johnson C. Smith team.
And there are scads of other success stories about former Pinecrest football players.
Ironically, Pinecrest has a quality athletic program, winning conference championships in about all its other sports and state championships in quite a few, including baseball, basketball, volleyball, golf, tennis and track. But Pinecrest has always had a jinx when it comes to its football team. The Patriots have not made the state football playoffs since 1987, and then one or two times before that.
So you can't blame the players, and you can't blame any one or two coaches. I think the numbers are to blame; so is the inability to retain a lot of players throughout the program. And the number of fans and parents who just shrug their shoulders and quit going to the games as soon as the Patriots' chances of landing a state playoff berth go south.
I have lost track of how many coaches have come and gone since the school opened in the fall of 1969. They last five or six years, perhaps, and then they move on, either quitting on their own or getting sacked. No, you can't blame any coach for the kind of ills afflicting Patriot Football. When you get rid of one, you could bring in another with an impressive win-loss record, and then that coach could end up winning six or seven games at the very best.
I covered sports full-time for almost 16 years, first for the old Citizen News-Record and later for the Enquirer-Journal of Monroe and the Richmond County Daily Journal. I don't live in the county and I don't see that many of my old classmates. But in all that time, whenever I happened to cover a Pinecrest football game, it pretty much amounts of a class reunion. Every time I go there I can count on seeing at least one person I knew at Pinecrest. I've met old schoolmates who have become teachers and coaches; who have children on the team; or just be eternally loyal Patriot supporters, with blood running dark green and gold until their dying days. They know their alma mater has never had a powerhouse team to match Richmond Senior's or Scotland County's or Douglas Byrd's. But they come anyway and cheer for their favorite football team on God's Green Earth.
Go, Patriots!

posted by Bill Lindau @ 10:32 AM