Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 24, 1994 TAG: 9411290069
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Medium
And also extremely lucky.
One game into the Class A Division 2 Region C playoffs, there are four football players from Giles High School who as long as they've played the game in high school, from eighth grade to junior varsity to varsity, have never lost a game.
Not one.
Blessed are they? Almost certainly.
Lucky? Absolutely.
Is this some kind of fluke? No way.
Not when we're talking about 40 straight wins over five years.
All the members of this quartet - end Anthony Myers, linebacker Brandon Steele, wingback Reggie Hoston, and lineman Alex Webb - are juniors. So the possibility certainly is that this mind-bending run could continue.
``We don't like to bring it up too much,'' said Steele, who grows more superstitious as the streak continues.
As varsity players, their chain of victories has grown to 25 games, one of which earned Giles the 1993 state championship.
There have been close calls.
A year ago, Radford led the Spartans by three touchdowns and then 21-7 at the half. Giles roared back to win 30-28.
Back on Oct. 14 in this year's regular season rematch with the Bobcats, Radford again led Giles at the half, this time 21-14, then was shut out by the Spartans in the second half and fell 36-21. Giles trailed Blacksburg twice in the season opener and rallied to win 30-16.
It's the mark of all great teams. They mold events by force of will.
``We get behind and we go crazy,'' Hoston said.
Some of those hairbreadth escapes were plenty crazy. One that leaves a particularly vivid memory was two years ago when the four were freshman playing for the junior varsity. It was the last game of the season and the Spartans were being entertained by Bluefield, a AAA West Virginia school.
Giles had been clinging to a 14-7 lead when Bluefield scored late in the game to make it 14-13. The Beavers opted to go for two points.
``I remember that day well,'' Myers said. ``It was raining, cold, you could see your breath ...''
Then Giles put the chill on the two-point conversion.
``They had this huge fullback and they ran a lead into the line and we stopped him,'' Steele said. ``After that, we shut them out the rest of the game and won.''
Attitude and approach have been crucial in games such as that.
``We say, they're trying to take something away from us that we've been working all our lives for and they aren't going to do it,'' Steele said.
In the state semifinals last year, Giles made an 8-0 lead over Haysi stand up all the way through the second half of a game played in mud and a downpour. For the most part, though, Giles hasn't been in many close games at any of the levels the four have played.
The story is even better than that for Myers. He's never played for a team that has lost a game at any level and he's been playing since he was in the fourth grade. During his sandlot days, he played for the Pearisburg Jaycees (as did Giles teammates Maurice and Raypheal Milton).
Two years in a row, the Jaycees beat the Eastern Spartans in the county title game. The Spartans were coached by Steve Steele, whose star player was his son, Brandon.
``Losing those games still gets thrown in my face all the time,'' Brandon Steele said. ``Raypheal and Maurice will bring it up and I'll go, `Don't even start.'''
Hoston is sympathetic. He played on a pretty good team, the Eastern Trojans, but it wasn't good enough to beat the Jaycees or Spartans. Webb had a less merry sandlot experience.
``I played for the Rich Creek Lions and we couldn't win if our life depended on it,'' he said.
Even though they don't like to talk about it much, the four aren't above rubbing it in a little to less fortunate teammates.
``We do joke about it every now and then with those who have lost a game or two,'' Myers said.
There's really nothing that can be said in response.
Said Giles coach Steve Ragsdale: ``When you think about it, that is a pretty exclusive group.''
by CNB