wpfast

Looks like some of the Hampton faithful have some trouble accepting thier loss at Cosby. Face it Hampton fans... you can call it a choke, accident, mistake, one-in-a-million, WHATEVER! You got your arses kicked and thats football. Move on and see what you can do in the playoffs. If you meet up with Cosby again and win, then do the talking. If you lose twice to Cosby, then it's time to shut your traps. Good luck to the Cosby program. If they cannot take care of business at home and bring their 1st title home, then it's their own fault.

Saw the Knoxville paper about Greenway.... what or who do you turn to now? On a serious note, get that kid some professional help. I really enjoyed working with the older brother who passed and was very sad to hear the other news this past spring. I really hated to read about this, especially after the assault thing earlier in the year. http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/oct/27/g...atus-uncertain/

Now that I have discussed #2, #3, #5, and #6.... lets move to #7 - Scheduling (regular season and scrimmages) OK here is my first beef... school's athletic budgets are critical nowadays. With travel, food, and bus costs, why not try and schedule teams in your immediate area? With CCHS's record these past few years, I do not think you have to worry about scheduling for state championships, much less conference championships. So, why not schedule some teams in the lower divisions that you might have a chance to win and develop players? I mean there is just a handful of players now for CCHS and NONE know how to win... at all. Truth hurts. So - why not schedule a North Greene? A West Greene? A Gatlinburg-Pittman? Pigeon Forge? And most importantly the most confusing one... COSBY? The Cosby thing has baffled me for years? You have a school in YOUR OWN FREAKING BACKYARD and yet you refuse to play them.... AND FOR WHAT? SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME IN A LOGICAL SENSE! It has to be pure fear on CCHS' part... it's got to be. Makes no sense for the schools not to play. Plus it would provide for increased ticket sales and attendance for both basketball and football. I hear excuses of security and whatnot.... but space me the worthless talk of that... if Austin East and Fulton can play, I think Cosby/CCHS would be fine. Schedule some teams and win a few games (1 or 2 in this case) and BUILD YOUR PROGRAM UP! The players need confidence and with the regional re-alignment... CCHS is staring into the barrel of a gun. Next up - scrimmages. It has amazed me for the past two years that I have actually had knowledge about the program is the scrimmages that are set up, not only in spring, but in the fall as well. True story- in the spring of 2007, CCHS was set to scrimmage Bearden. Well the CCHS coach at the time cancelled the scrimmage because of a shortage of players at the tailback position... they only had 2 players. Well BOO FREAKING HOO! There were 50 other players at that time and the players were ticked by the cancellation. They wanted to play it... they were hungry to play it. Besides, how can you not play it and give your players the vision of a strong program by not going? I mean I'm sure they preach things about becoming a powerhouse, but if the players never see it, then how can they have the vision to work for it? The Bearden story is true and I DARE anyone to comment otherwise. It was also stated "we don't want to get too many players hurt." If that was the case, then why the h3ll did you schedule the scrimmage in the first place??? It would also be recommended to schedule more than 2 scrimmages in the Spring, other than an inter-squad game. How else can you accurately evaluate the players you got and set your positions by just prctice and 1 or 2 scrimmages? Plus schedule a powerhouse. Give your players a chance to go against some of the better competition. If your worried about getting hurt, some injuries are just freak things and bad luck... if your worried about getting thrown around, maybe it's time to address your strength and conditioning program and preparation (which will be discussed later). Besides, what do you have to lose? You're already getting blown out by 5th and 6th place teams in your own conference on Friday nights, so whats a scrimmage going to hurt? Give the players a chance and have them battle tested before the season begins!

^ That conference is a freaking joke. If Greeneville doesn't win a football state championship in the next 4 years, they need to fire the whole staff! It's one thing to move down, but playing in a conference so weak might cost the Devils come playoff time. I hope the new coach continues to schedule the hard out-of-state games. I do like that about the program.

I'm going to hit #2, #3, and #6 next... Support.... wow, this is what is really needed across the board. So much negativity is in the area about the kids, the coaches, the parents, the school, etc... CCHS is now on it's 3rd coach in 4 years. I do not see how in this world, kids can go through that. Anyways, lets start from the top - Administrative Support. This one has me really baffled. I think it's more of an organizational issue than anything. The coaching search from last year only consisted of 2 interviews and was dragged out until mid January. The kids in the meantime did not do hardly any training until January (2 weeks before winter break) while this "search" was going on. If the school knew from the start, why in the heck did they not let the guy start organizing the off season stuff? I have to also question this support with not only the way the new coaching situation was handled, but how the old coaches have been handled. The freshman coaching has been a joke due to not enough staff and proper prep. If it starts "from the top" then the top needs some fixing in order to get the program where everyone wants it or at least to some level of respectability. The failure of the administration to look into siuations like drug testing and even the athletic training situation is a complete mess. In this day and age, the school has had athletic trainers in the past. To basically not have one the past 2 years other than side contract work with unlicensed trainers is just opening the door for future liability. This is not a bassh by any means, there are some good administrative people, but some organizational and rational changes have to be made! Community Support - football attendance, newpaper press, and just the overall mood of the community is horrible. Negativity surrounds everything and makes life on the players and coaches a rough deal. First off - and you people of Newport, if you on here, listan up - IT WILL TAKE YEARS TO BUILD THIS THING BACK UP! To be honest, you could bring Bill Parcells into CCHS and the people would bash him and try to run him off. Be supportive of the players and coaches, come out to the games, and buy into the booster programs IF YOU REALLY CARE about whats going on. CCHS Friday night football used to be a main staple of entertainment, until the team wins again (and it could be many years away)... you have to support the school and its programs and make the best out of the situation. Where is some sort of positivity in this thing? Football/Athletic Booster Programs - the days of the Big Red Rooster Boosters have been long gone. This is kinda tied to community support. There used to be many things in the paper, banquet awards sponsored by compaines, calendars, banners, season tickets, qb club parking, the whole 9 yards. Anyone in this field, whether its an athletic director, administrator, coach, parent, or even player will tell you that with successful programs comes money. Money from the gates is important, but also money from the booster programs. I don't really know if there is an emphasis with the marketing of the season tickets/seasonal parking, etc. I'm sure there could be some creative ways to get people in the community and even businesses active for support of the team. I think it may be in the line of just "effort and organization", but I know there are people in Newport that can help and assist in this matter. There are tons of ideas and even to get former players and alumni involved, there needs to be some creativity there. Who knows, maybe someone else can shed some light on this topic.

Ok lets start this off with what some of you guys have been talking about... #3, the feeder systems. There is no true middle school in Newport. Years ago there was a park recreational league that featured it's teams against some of the countys surrounding elem teams. Was a great concept and the numbers were out there. All of those teams fed into the high school where the numbers were high for tryouts and etc. Well at some point in the late 90's this "idea" arose about having a true "middle school team". The elementary school teams were eliminated and it was required that all kids play for this one team. After years of kids getting tired of not playing, the numbers have dropped and the feeder system was not like it was. Seems like a loss of interest and you know what they say... if it's not broke, DONT FIX IT! Recently one of the elementary schools (Edgemont) created another "middle school age" team. This was met with a lot of conflict and politics. After the dust settled, the team was allowed to exist and play a schedule. (Should have been great news to at least give kids more options and more players out = more players in high school,... right?) Anyways, with the feeder programs comes another issue that I have still yet to this day completely understood. The Newport Middle School DOES NOT play the Cosby middle schools, the Jeff Co. Middle schools, or any of the white pine/morristown hamblen systems. They go all the way to west Knoxville and play teams that smear them. Why not play teams, your age, in your own backyard?? I am glad to see another team in the county and there should be 2 or 3 more developed in order to get kids to come out and play. Keep the one middle school team now with Newport Grammar and Brigeport kids and allow Parrotsville, Edgemont, and Centerview/Del Rio to field teams along with Cosby. I don't know how to fix the system, too many ego's and good ol boy networks/barriers need to be tossed aside to fix this problem. I guess if you do not have a "true middle school" why not have 3-4 teams play each other each year and then play the surrounding area (close by) teams? There is probably more to this, but it's what I hear from parents and even some middle school coaches. If there are a few elem teams, so freaking what. Your giving some kids an opportunity to play that would be shuffled out with just one team and if you keep the interest up, guess what, the potential for more kids in the long run to FEED into the high school system.

Each school used to have it's own football program and it competed in a recreational setting. There is no "true" physical middle school in Newport. The middle school "team" is established by taking kids from all the elementary schools. What you get is about 30 kids total from that and at least half of those will go on to play at the high school level.

High school football programs across anywhere deal with the same crap. Plain and simple, disciplined teams normally win! If you do not have some sort of accountability for your players, they will never win and will become problems. Looks like in this case, some chicken-crap daddy (who probably never played football) wants something done to a coach that "tapped" the kid on the pads. I mean come on, this is the reason many high school kids do not make it in college. They cannot handle the emotions and accountability. Some of you older folks on here can remember getting grabbed by the jersey and jerked around or sometimes even by the facemask. If you want your sons to be , then play basketball or soccer and NEVER touch a football!

Greeneville by 12! /thumb[1].gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumb:" border="0" alt="thumb[1].gif" />

WOW... never thought I would see this? Might as well give G-ville then football conference championship for the next 25 years!

Well ok FOshizzle, I have decided to create an account and answer this post as you asked. Also, there have been many other people, players, and professionals who have sent links from this site and etc. It's amazing that I am hearing all of this stuff and I live over 14 hours away. For those who are wondering, I am that strength coach! When I have more time (probably tonight), I will get back on here and shed more light on this topic. First off, I don't think Cocke County High School is the worst program in the state. There are a handful of other schools in the state that have been historically bad and Cocke Co. (CCHS), has been down for quite some time. To rank CCHS as the "worst" could be vailidated in some eyes... even in the Newport community, but to say CCHS is bad and even worse as North Greene, Unicoi County to name some others is totally not true. CCHS used to be a tough opponent for most regional teams. Now they are laughed at and serve as a football whoop-arse buffet on Friday nights. Keeping this short for now (running out of available time), I will leave some topics for discussion on why the CCHS program is in the state it is in today. #1 - Player development #2 - Community Support #3 - Administrative Support #4 - Coaches & Players work ethic #5 - Feeder systems #6 - Booster Programs #7 - Scheduling - regular season & scrimmages I will return to individually comment on each of these topics tonight. I feel I can offer some truths to this equation that is presented. I also feel that if some of these topics are addressed AND EXECUTED, then the program will lift itself from the bottom of the barrel so-to-speak. I respect many people in Newport and there are some that I would not p!ss on if they were on fire. That in itself does not matter, thats personal. I am here for the athletes who have worked hard for me in the past and there ARE athletes in the community and if I ever hear "we aint just got the talent" again, I'm going to scream! The kids ARE good athletes, the community DOES want a winner, and there are plenty of wrinkles that need to be ironed out and butts to be kicked out the door. For the future athletes-sake is one of the reasons I am going to come out and post on this silly message board. For the past 3 weeks I have been emailed and asked questions by former players, athletes parents, and now people who have tracked me down from a newspaper article. If you want some truths, you will get them. I will be fair, but tough! If I can reach someone to actually gives a crap, then it's a win-win for the CCHS athletic programs future. It's not as bad as what people think, but there needs to be some chlorine put into the athletic pool up there there! I'll return, but next time with my 2?? on this matter.

I'll go with Cosby on this one! /thumb[1].gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumb:" border="0" alt="thumb[1].gif" />