Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511240078
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PILGRIM'S KNOB LENGTH: Long
``Boys, this is your season right here,'' he began.
Like any football team, they listened intensely to their coach's final motivating words. But unlike other football teams, their eyes confessed to a mix of emotions that only a group of young men in their unique and unwanted position could share. A mix of determination and hope, sadness and doubt.
``They've said good things, bad things, everything but the truth,'' he went on, feeling emotions of his own. ``Virginia beat Florida State, they said it couldn't be done. I beat Selma Owens, they said that couldn't be done either ...''
Roger Deel paused. With Selma Owens, he was referring to his long-shot election to the school board in neighboring Dickenson County just four days earlier. The faces around him lit up. Then he finished. ``Here's number three. This is the biggest one yet.''
It was a game the Council Cobras had looked forward to all year, the last game of the season against their biggest rival, Whitewood High School, a game that sportswriters in nearby Grundy and Richlands sarcastically dubbed the Super Bowl. Significant only because it would determine - for the fourth consecutive year - who had the worst team in the district. And only because Council and Whitewood share such similar football histories.
And because there was a streak at stake.
Going into the game, Council had the distinction of being the only high school football program in Virginia that had never won a single game. Their record was 0-39, and closing in on the state record for consecutive losses of 43 set by nearby Haysi High School from 1964-69.
For its part, Whitewood had not fared much better. Until this year, when Whitewood upset St. Paul, the only school Whitewood had been able to beat in football was Council. Their record was 4-35.
Growing pains
Both Council and Whitewood are small, isolated high schools in mountainous Buchanan County. Council enrolls about 130 students in grades 10-12. Whitewood enrolls about 120 students. Both began football programs four years ago, and both have endured the growing pains that come with lopsided losses and exceptionally lean rosters.
Council dressed just 14 players for its showdown against Whitewood. That's about the same number of players the school has on its basketball team. It is a number that's hard to believe, given that it takes 11 players in football just to take the field. In fact, many of Council's players this year have played every down of every game, on offense, on defense, on kickoffs, punts and points after.
The Virginia High School League recommends that a football team carry a minimum of 25 players. ``That's mainly for safety,'' explained VHSL assistant director Larry Johnson. ``It's tough for kids to play every down because then fatigue sets in, and that's when you get injuries.''
But the VHSL leaves it up to individual schools and school boards to decide whether or not they want football. In Council's case, the school board bowed to pressure from a community group, despite concerns from the school's principal, and from the man who would become Council's coach, Roger Deel.
``I said you're going to be asking those boys to do a lot.''
And to endure a lot.
In four seasons, Council has been outscored by their opponents 1,576 to 211. That's an average of about seven touchdowns a game. That's tough.
But there was always one game a year worth circling the calendar for - Whitewood. Against Whitewood, there was always a fighting chance.
Whitewood won the first two meetings with Council pretty easily, 26-0 and 40-7. Last year's game was a different story. It came down to the final play.
The score was 14-12. Whitewood was leading, but Council had just scored a touchdown and they were trying for the two-point conversion to tie the game. They called a quick pitch out to running back Larry Barton. The problem was that Council's starting quarterback was out with an injured ankle, and his replacement blew the play. He took the snap from center and turned the wrong way to pitch the ball.
Whitewood held on and won the game.
Whitewood by 14
This year, the point spread favored Whitewood by 14.
It was Whitewood's homecoming, and it would be the first time Whitewood had ever hosted Council on its home field. They would dress a full 30 players for the game. That's still small for a football team, but next to Council, it looked liked they had a thousand players. Whitewood also had won a game already this season. They beat St. Paul 20-14.
Whitewood's young coach, Mark Cooper, was confident. He told his team: ``If we play the type of game we're capable of playing, then we'll win.''
His strategy was simple. To run a lot of sweeps and option plays and double teams to wear Council down. To make them tired.
Cooper had his worries, however. He knew that his kids felt pressure. They didn't want to be the first team to lose to Council. They didn't want to ruin their sweet victory over St. Paul. Cooper also worried about Council's running back, Barton.
Going into the game, Barton had 690 yards rushing, no small accomplishment for a running back on a team like Council. And between the two teams, he was considered the only legitimate football talent, with track star speed and a born instinct for dodging tacklers.
Barton and his teammates at Council were well-aware of their long losing streak, but nobody ever talked about it. ``If anything, I think it makes us try harder,'' was all Barton would say.
This final game was especially important to Barton and Council's other four seniors, Shawn Thomas, Robbie Deel, Jonathan Owens and Keith Deel, who had played for the school through all four of its winless years. For them, this was their last chance to feel a little of the exhilaration that makes sports so appealing. For them, it would be like winning the Super Bowl.
But losing hasn't been the hardest part. ``Not really,'' Barton said. ``It has been harder making everybody realize we can win.'' Certainly, more than other football teams, this is a group that feels like it's them against the world.
Deel, their coach, warned them to fight that feeling. ``If we make a mistake, or if if they score first, we can't just drop our head and say that's it,'' he told them.
His strategy against Whitewood also was simple. Get the ball to Barton and pray nobody gets injured.
Head-to-head, Deel would take his best 11 players against any other team's best 11 players in their district. For such a small team, Council has some big kids: Billy Farmer at 290 pounds, Nathan Sutherland at 275, Doug Deel at 230 and Artie Nuckles at 220. The problem is that Council just doesn't have enough big kids. Because backing them up is Dewey Bostic, who, at a feathery 125 pounds, symbolizes just now much Council has been outmatched and outmanned all along.
``A couple of injuries and we're in trouble,'' Deel said.
Breakfast and a prayer
Deel had another worry as well. Despite his 0-39 record, Deel calls himself a decent coach when it comes to watching game films and preparing his team. But when it comes to game day, he half-joked about a major weakness. ``If the other coaches would just go by the film, and not make any changes, it would help me a whole lot.''
Deel, 48, won the coaching job at Council almost by default. He was the only teacher at Council with any kind of football experience. In 1968, he had coached the junior varsity at nearby Garden High School. Coincidentally - or maybe not so coincidentally - in high school he played football for Haysi, he team that started the 0-43 state record.
He's good to his players, though. He told them that if they beat Whitewood, then after the game he would treat them to Pizza Hut in Grundy. Before the game, he arranged to have breakfast for them at Hurricane Baptist Church. The menu included lasagna, salad, garlic bread, bananas, pumpkin pie, coconut cake, and, for a few of the players, a little time to pray in the church's small chapel.
Whitewood's football field lies along the banks of the Dismal River, in a hollow shadowed on both sides by two mountains.
It is a place deep in coal country, a land of both devastating beauty and devastating ugliness from the mines that the coal has attracted.
To travel from Council to Whitewood High School, which is actually located in a community called Pilgrim's Knob, it is an hour's drive over roads so twisted they make the switch-backs up Bent Mountain in Roanoke County look like a drag strip.
Some 30,000 people live in Buchanan County, where the mines employ nearly a third of the workers, where unemployment stands at 10 percent, where the median family income equals about $22,000 a year, and where nearly 22 percent of the population lives in poverty.
It can be a grim place to play on a football team that has never won a game, or on a day like Mother Nature dished out on Nov. 11.
Football commentator John Madden might have called it a perfect day for football. But he would have been the only one. Because really it was a day of pure misery. Torrential rain, horrific 40 m.p.h. winds, plummeting temperatures and finally snow. Far from perfect, for football, it was more like playing neck-deep in ice water.
The weather was so bad, in fact, that the coin toss for the game was moved indoors.
A flicker of hope
Council won the toss. They got the ball first, and on the opening play from scrimmage, there was a sudden flicker of hope, a run so marvelous and so exciting that it transcended the misery of the playing conditions. It also could have changed the course of the day.
The play was a basic pitch out to running back Barton, who took the ball around to his right, then cut back across the field to his left and sprinted past Whitewood's sloshing defense 80 yards for a touchdown.
Only the play was called back.
Of all things, Council didn't have enough players on the field. The touchdown didn't count. The flicker faded.
From there, the weather took over. There wouldn't be any more 80 yard dashes by Barton or anyone. And any strategies by either team soon became pointless. Endurance became the order of the day. Human suffering.
``I can't feel my hands,'' quarterback Shawn Thomas shouted in agony toward the sidelines. ``There's no feeling in my arms!''
Amazingly, given the conditions, the only score in the first half came on a pass that should have been intercepted by Barton. But the pass bounced off his frozen fingertips and floated into the arms of a Whitewood receiver in the end zone.
At halftime, the score was 6-0.
In the locker room, Council's players went directly to the showers - in full uniform. Helmet, pads, jerseys, cleats, everything. They stood under the hot water trying to get warm. It took awhile before they realized that there wasn't any hot water. The showers were running cold.
During these 20 minutes, the players scrambled to find anything dry to put on under their wet clothes. They tipped their legs upside down to drain the water from inside their shoes. Nothing really helped.
Almost as an afterthought, Deel and his two assistant coaches barked the customary instructions and encouragement.
``You've got to get low. You can't let them push you back. You can't give them nine yards on a quarterback sneak.''
``We're only six down now.''
``We're only six down.''
``Let's play some football!''
The final score
Outside, as the rain mixed with sleet and turned to snow, Whitewood's announcer informed the dozen or so souls in the crowd that the school's homecoming dance for that night had been cancelled due to weather.
The snow was almost a relief from the icy cold rain, but the soggy field and falling temperatures made the second half of the game just as unbearable for the players as the first half.
In all, Council fumbled the ball 11 times, losing six of them. Thomas, the quarterback, tried four passes without a completion. Barton managed only 40 yards rushing.
But it probably was the faces of the parents who waited on the sidelines with hot chocolate and wet blankets for their suffering sons that told the real story. They didn't care who won or who lost. They just wanted the game to end.
The last play came down to a fourth down. Council had the ball backed up to their goal line. They tried a hand-off to Barton, who was pulled down for a loss of two yards.
``Boys, this is your season right here,'' Deel had said.
Time expired.
The final score was Whitewood 20, Council 0.
Afterwards, the locker room scene was much like a replay of halftime, as the players scrambled again to get warm. This time, they found hot water in the sinks and took turns thawing out there.
It could have turned out differently. If Barton's touchdown run had not been called back ... If the weather had been better ... If they had been able to hold onto the ball...
Yet, their mood wasn't solemn. They weren't dejected or heartbroken. They were just physically numb - perhaps emotionally, too.
The streak isn't something they're proud of, but it isn't something their ashamed of, either.
There's also no reason to believe their streak won't continue, with the team losing five seniors, including their best player, their quarterback, and with no star prospects on the horizon.
In the end, Barton sat shivering at his locker after the game. Later, he would be named all-district, the first Council player to receive this distinction. He offered no apologies for the last four years, no remorse.
He had been recruited to play at just about every other school in the county. But he stuck with Council. ``I always wanted to play for Council,'' he said, and shrugged. ``It's just where I've been all my life.''
by CNB