RebRaider

Good Luck to the SN Raiders from a former Raider of the 80's. I haven't made too many SN games in the past few years because I've got kids in another area school to keep up with but I've kept a close eye on the great turnaround that Coach Norris, Coach Copas and others have led over the last few years. I did manage to get to the Union game this year and wow it was exciting. There was a great crowd on hand that night and I hope that the Thunder will be rolling in the Valley as well this Friday night since SN is the last school playing in Kingsport. Come on out Kingsport and support the Raiders! It may be cold but I hope we can fill up the home side and help push the Raiders to the semi's!

Batman, why so greedy? You've already got a starting QB and RB that should be going to Central. Count your blessings!!!

That would be Coach Monk. I don't know anything about the current situation, just a little familiar with the Sullivan North coaches and program.

Best wishes to both the Falcons and Raiders for an injury free game. This should be a good one to watch. I did have a question for someone close to the Volunteer clan. I just heard that Volunteer would not be fielding a Freshman team this year because there were only 9 Freshmen that came out. Where are all those Church Hill Panthers going?

Welcome O&W, I've got a lot of respect for what Coach Colobro was able to accomplish at GC. I know he really had to hit the ground running this year and he had mentioned that his short term goals for East were to simply run the offensive and defensive schemes that best fit the personnel he has on hand. Much of his success at GC was due to good youth developmental programs in place over there. Has he gotten around to encouraging youth football in the East area? Good luck this year...

You ought to see the Southwest Virginia edition of the Times-News...

Who has Volunteer scrimmaged so far and do they have any more scheduled ?

Anyone hearing what Nick Colobro is up to at East?

This is way late but I haven't posted in a while. Regarding spring scrimmages, I struck up a conversation with what turned out to be one of Central's players in June and he was telling me that they had a couple spring scrimmages. One was against Hampton. Central scored on Hampton's 1st team, Hampton scored on Central's 2nd team defense. The other was against one of the Greene county teams. Don't remember if it was West, North, South or who. I think he said that Central came out on top of that 3 scores to 0. Maybe someone with 1st hand knowledge can elaborate... Looking forward to kickoff !

Which seating expansion option was chosen? It wasn't clear from the article in the paper.

Probably not enough going on right now to keep a single school thread going. The "Big 8 Region 1 AAA Conference Offseason" thread seems to be getting most of the attention from upper east tennessee football fans at the moment.

Crawdad, I agree about the resources available to city schools vs county schools in general. What we are talking about on this board is football and as far as that goes the amount of "support" in the community is important but it's not all about money. I think the key is the FOCUS that you speak of. I'm actually a cross-county transplant, my kids are in the South zone feeder schools with one about to move to South next year. To me, the most important thing in crafting a winning program is to build a good foundation. Making development opportunities available to the elementary/middle school aged kids and building an attitude of excitement/anticipation towards "strapping on the big helmet" inspires the kids to work hard and keeps them interested so that they don't drop out when other things start competing for their attention. A good example of this sits accross the state line in Gate City. The kids over there can't wait to play for "Big Blue". The Rebels seem to have a pretty good feeder system. I've been around the Sullivan County league the last couple years. I heard that there was a lot of contriversy (can't spell can I?) at first about this but I think it's great that the Colonial Heights area actually has two teams (Colonial Heights and Fordtown) in the league. While that might dilute the talent a bit I think its great at this level to be able to give kids double the playing time that they would have been getting under the old format. I've got several friends over in Gray involved in the county leage and have heard them discussing about doing something like that in the past because they've had a lot of kids standing on the sidelines but they couldn't get past the fact that it would weaken the team if they split it.

Yep... I hadn't checked their math, just reported the total number from the web site then added up the numbers from the 10th to 12th grades to see how many upperclassmen there were. I actually think the latest total number for D-B is around 1950 or so. Don't have any better numbers for the Hill.

I would love that, but TN High would have to be in the mix too. They are no where near being 6A even if they are a city school. I think those eight teams would make a pretty good conference. I expect to hear some noise from Cherokee this year I agree in general but Sullivan North would be doing it's athletic programs a disservice by being in a conference with the above schools. Kingsport has just annexed too much of SN's base for it to be in the same league with the schools above. I'm definitely not putting them down at all (former Raider here!) but you can't argue with numbers. As far as football goes I'd say that SN would at least be a middle of the pack or a little better contender in the conference named above. Norris has done a great job with that program and they've had admirable success as a 3A team playing up at a 5A level in the recent past. SN can definitely be a regional championship contender when they play schools their own size though and I think it is only fair to the kids that they should have that opportunity. This piqued my interest in area enrollments and I got the following data from www.city-data.com. All I can say about D-B and the Hill is that they have grown to their current size intentionally. Schools need to be playing other schools with similar enrollments and if there are issues with travel time, travel costs, etc - they've simply gotten what they have asked for... David Crockett Total = 1508 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 1025 Daniel Boone Total = 1350 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 917 Tennessee High Total = 1342 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 873 Cherokee Total = 1288 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 810 Volunteer Total = 1223 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 810 Sullivan East Total = 1081 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 763 Sullivan South Total = 1138 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 743 Sullivan Central Total = 1109 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 716 Sullivan North Total = 933 (includes 8th grade) Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 517 Other Local Schools Elizbethton Total = 800 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 506 Greeneville Total = 948 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 602 D-B Total = 2034 Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 1317 Science Hill Total = 2855 (includes 8th grade) Upperclassmen (10-12th Grade) = 1447

I've known Tony Vaughn for years and he is no joke; he just don't have anything except the transfer to work with. The assistants are clueless I have to agree with you there. That Harrison at Holston Middle couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. I know I know they win "state championships." Right. Middle school is NOT high school. Over on our side of the county he is not respected very much. Classless in fact. :Likes to run the score up on people and run his mouth. Throws stuff too. Not in Vaughn nor Dickie Warren's league either. Not high school coaching material in my book. I can't speak as to Vaughn's ability as I'm not very familiar with the Central community. Have heard he is a good coach but I have heard things that support BlackJack's reasoning. I had friends with kids playing bball at Holston in the last few years. They had successful teams and some coaches & administrators from at least Tennessee High and Sullivan East were coming to their games, congratulating the players and so forth. That's heady stuff for a 7th or 8th grader. They were complaining that Central's staff was AWOL while all this was going on and that most of the really good players ended up going somewhere other than Central. TnHi, SE, and SS were mentioned. I think the person that went to SS was mainly angling for football though. D-B has pulled several good players from SC over the years as well.