THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609260028
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 148 lines
THE LIGHT shone down from four stacks high above Portsmouth's Churchland Stadium long before the game began.
Both teams arrived in long convoys of yellow buses, the Norcom Greyhounds last. The players headed for the locker room, a stream of maroon and gray. They were followed by Joe Langston, their coach of 24 years.
Norcom had crushed Hickory High last week, playing what Langston loves to call ``smash-mouth football.''
But they'd be going up against the area's top-ranked Deep Creek Hornets. Creek was coming off a 57-0 victory. It would be a tough game.
As Langston watched his team warm up from the sidelines, a water boy carried a stack of paper towels to him sent over from a fan.
Langston unfolded the towels. They had football plays scratched on them, a series of plays for Norcom to run.
``We've got a lot of interesting fans,'' said the 54-year-old Langston, who starred at Norcom before going on to play at Norfolk State University and in the Canadian Football League.
The fans, several thousand of them, stretched from the parking to the gate, where police officers collected tickets and ran metal detectors over spectators.
``Woo, look at that gate,'' said Willie Anderson, 57, seated in the press box.
``I see it,'' said 74-year-old Simon Sessoms.
``At four dollars a ticket,'' said Anderson.
Sessoms would operate the scoreboard as he has for 30 years at Portsmouth sporting events.
The only time Sessoms doesn't work the scoreboard is when he's away. Which is usually in October. He's missed only one World Series since 1954. Anderson fills in when Sessoms is gone.
Next to Anderson, Barry Coltrane, 37, settled into the press box. A distant cousin of legendary jazz musician John Coltrane, he uses his pipes as the Norcom P.A. announcer.
Coltrane's voice filled the stadium: ``Good evening. Welcome to Churchland Stadium for this evening's game between the Deep Creek Hornets and the I.C. Norcom Greyhounds.
At the far end of the field, the scoreboard lights burned:
Home 0, Visitors 0.
Deep Creek, clad in purple and white, kicked off.
Atop the press box, Doug Rineer followed the action with a video camera. Ri-neer, 47, tapes games for Norcom. Deep Creek also has a tape guy.
``You gotta have your tape,'' said Rineer.
You also need a headset guy feeding gleaned intelligence to the coaches below. Each team has one.
Deep Creek also has Purple Thunder, a golf cart converted into a noise maker that sounds when the other team isn't doing too well.
In the Norcom stands, thousands knew their team was being overpowered even as the first quarter ended without Purple Thunder having roared.
Home 0, Visitors 0
Deep Creek was striking as the new quarter opened.
``Oh,'' said Iva S. Foust, a Portsmouth teacher and mother of three children who have attended Norcom. ``I wanted to see this. What do they have to go down there for?''
The voice of Coltrane filled the stadium: ``Please support our band students by participating in the annual fruit sale during September and October.''
Across the aisle from Foust sat Ronald E. Hawkins, 54, a former Greyound linebacker. A long-time fan, he remembers the good Norcom teams that have come and gone. This will be a good season, he said, no matter how this game ends.
As a play began, Hawkins offered advice to the Norcom defenders.
``Come on up to the line,'' he yelled.
No dice. Deep Creek scored and a horrible sound belched from the far end zone. A train horn mixed with police sirens. Purple Thunder.
Home 0, Visitors 7
Halftime came, and with it the marching bands.
Norcom band mom Alethia Biggs worked security for the section of the stands where the band sat. Nobody is allowed in that section. Just the band.
Biggs' 16-year-old son Dartanion plays trumpet. In addition to being named for one of the Three Musketeers, Dartanion is a National Honors Society member with a 3.5 grade point average and has a part-time job at Rack & Sack. He also has a very proud mom.
Deep Creek started off the third quarter bee-lining through the Norcom defense for a touchdown. They soon added another.
The Norcom cheerleaders tried to pick up the crowd: ``Maroon and gray. Norcom hounds don't play.''
After the third Deep Creek touchdown and the maniacal banshee scream of Purple Thunder died away, Sessoms punched in the extra point on the scoreboard computer.
``They kept the ball seven minutes,'' said Anderson.
Home 0, Visitors 21
The Norcom band tried to keep spirits up, but Deep Creek rolled up seven more points, and Purple Thunder tolled.
But the ``Versatile 100,'' as the band is known, played on.
``We're known traditionally as a black band,'' explained LaWanda Williams, 16.
``We're high-marching,'' she said. ``We have skills.''
The scoreboard clock blinked 0:00.
Home 0, Visitors 28
John Garris, 57, gray-bearded, heavy-set, dressed in a tan jacket and blue tie, sat in the heart of the Norcom bleachers as the crowd thinned. His cane rested in his hands.
The notes he had scribbled on a few paper towels before the game had been ignored by Joe Langston. ``Go to the left,'' they had said in Xs and Os.
He had tried to help.
``Norcom's too light,'' said Garris. ``The big boys were pushing them out.''
Coach Joe should have run the team left behind their biggest man, said Garris.
``They just might go the rest of the way,'' said Garris of Deep Creek.
In the press box, John Coltrane's distant cousin spoke into the microphone: ``Once again we'd like to thank everybody for coming out tonight. Have a safe drive home.''
Barry Coltrane put his headphones down.
``We outta here,'' he said to the men in the box.
The Norcom band high-stepped out of the stadium.
The men who worked Purple Thunder helped roll the beast up two planks and into the back of a red pickup truck.
Teams boarded buses. Fans got into cars.
Joe Langston stood in the doorway of a Norcom bus, talking to his team.
``We didn't play football tonight,'' he said.
Smash-mouth football did not take place on their side of the field. No excuses.
Home 0, Visitors 28
The numbers burned bright over Churchland Stadium, punched into the computer by Simon Sessoms. And then the scoreboard was shut off and the only lights that burned through the night as a pair of school bus convoys and their corresponding fans began their journey home were on four stacks high above a field littered with orange peels and cleat marks. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot
The Norcom High School band, known as the ``Versatile 100,'' tried
to rally the Greyhounds during their game with the Deep Creek
Hornets.
Barry Coltrane is the public address announcer for Norcom football
games and a distant cousin of jazz great John Coltrane.
With a long tradition and strong local alumni base, Norcom fans turn
out by the thousands to support their tieam[sic], wearing T-shirts
like this one.
Photo
MIKE HEFFNER/The Virginian-Pilot
Norcom football fans cheered a fumble recovery by the Greyhounds in
their game against Deep Creek. by CNB