Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 22, 1994 TAG: 9411220084
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For years, I was able to balance my country girl upbringing with my yearning for the city life.
Nowhere was that more evident than in my high-school days. I thrived at rural Auburn High School, with its small teacher-student ratio and opportunities for student leadership, while none too secretly yearning to attend Radford High School. It was only five miles from my Plum Creek house instead of the 15-mile bus trip I faced daily.
I found a way to have the best of both worlds.
Come Friday, it was off to Radford High School for a football game and mingling with my best friend, Lauree, and her Radford High schoolmates. I'd return to my school the following week with Bobcat cheers for our cheerleaders to adapt as well as tons of gossip about Radford folks to impress the upperclassmen.
With Auburn a Group A school in the Mountain Empire District and Radford a Group AA school in the New River District, my loyalty was never seriously called into question. I could support the Bobcats without fear of cheering against my own school.
For most of my school years, Auburn didn't even have a football team.
On Nov. 11, it all came crashing down around me.
My husband - a former Bobcat, of course - and I went to the Radford football game. This year, Radford finally bowed to a declining student enrollment and dropped down to competition in the Group A level of high school sports.
This night, they were playing Auburn.
Oy!
"Am I an Eagle? Am I a Bobcat? Am I an Eagle? Am I a Bobcat?" raced through my head in the weeks leading up to the game.
Answer: After spending two quarters at the game and barely avoiding frost-bitten toes, I'm both.
I'm a proud Radford resident who gained a further appreciation and sense of loyalty for the spirit of my old school.
Auburn fielded a team of 19 players, 10 of whom were playing both offense and defense. Radford, on the other hand, had about twice that many players. Auburn's 16-member band put on a spirited pregame show while more than 30 Bobcat band members watched from the sidelines.
Even spectators on the Radford side gave the Auburn Eagles a warm reception, especially the trumpet player who was dressed in a football uniform.
John L.M. Yon, 14, plays in the band and on the junior varsity football team. He was able to suit up for the final game of the varsity season because the JV season was complete. His father, John H. Yon, a Montgomery County deputy sheriff, said his son was put in for three plays.
Seeing a trumpet-playing football player might have been unusual for Bobcat fans, but at Auburn, such double lives are common, said Steve Wright, Auburn's football coach.
Wright said that it may be disheartening for the Eagles, who won only one game this year, to go out and play teams like Giles, Floyd County and Radford - teams that once competed in the mighty New River District of Group AA schools before declining enrollment shrank their teams.
Still, it's easier for a school in a compact city like Radford to draw players, he said, because students don't have far to travel for practices. At Auburn, students may live miles away near the Floyd County line or Plum Creek.
"There comes a point ... when you're not having a lot of success winning football games [when it becomes] a year that you build a lot of character in yourself and your team," Wright said. "You have to look at other things than the wins and losses. ... Our kids, they've never backed away from anyone."
From Radford's first score on an Auburn fumble to the painful end of the 45-14 game, Auburn's players demonstrated heart. It didn't go unnoticed by victorious Bobcat fans, who realized that maybe the Bobcats were the ones playing out of their league.
Kathy Loan covers police and courts for the New River Valley bureau.
by CNB