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.

There's a little over an inch of snow on the ground in Kingsport and it's snowing steadily. It isn't snowing too fast yet but it seems to be increasing in size.

Option "4" must be the visitor seats It's about time something was done to add seats on the visitors side. I couldn't believe it the first time I was in the stadium after the new turf was installed and saw what little seating was available over there. I hope that this will also center the seating on the visitor's side so that the seating is centered on the 50 instead of being mostly on one side of it. I know there are issues with the turf and such but I'm sure that can be accomodated somehow. There's a lot of interest in football in Kingsport and increased seating at J. Fred is way overdue. Also noticed that the Kingsport school system director if finance apparently doesn't go to football games. The article claimed that the stadium held around 10,000 fans for the South at DB game last fall. Sorry Mr. Frye but the game was at South this year... It wasn't a direct quote but the author attributed the infomation to Mr. Frye - could be just a case of bad writing. Anyway, good luck with this.

I thought the Big East was dissolved when the new classification system was put in...

"With 15 years of coaching experience, the supplement would be an additional $8,000 for a total of $73,000. " I can't think of anyone on that list, besides maybe Mike Turner, that gets up to that amount. I guess Masters degree and any other endorsements might add to that as well. I am willing to beat there are some other things in there that JC school systems can do to add to that number that don't have anything to do with football, and that shouldn't be listed to the public since it is a personal contract outside of football, which would make sense. I think Coach Carter should stay at South, not enough money to lure him away, along with the hassel and the nagging feeling in the back of his head that says "What if it is the system of JC and not anything any coach has tried?" It could be three years and done and then where is he going to go? With Coach Turner, goign back home to where he is from would be something that makes more sense and may be more long term...then again it may not. Tough decision but it seems like the challenge might very well draw some people in. Then again, maybe they have more money we aren't seeing, such as to draw Coach Smith all the way from nasheville to coach in JC. I really had no idea what sort of salary JC was going to be able to offer but I really think that the main draw to the Hill for SC would be the opportunity and challenge to take the reins of one of the state's largest high schools and guide it to realize it's potential. I don't think that the realistic dollar figures that have been discussed in this forum are by themselves enough of an incentive to move. The other draw could be the opportunity to work some sort of a deal as mentioned with the Nelson's to all move there at the same time. I don't know how close those guys are but I can see as that being very attractive if they really are as tight as some have inferred. As you all know though, this is going to be a tightrope for those guys. They would obviously be burning bridges with the Sullivan County school system and it wouldn't be easy to come back if things don't work out just right on the Hill. And you can bet that they would be jettisoned just as quickly (and as professionally !) as Scott Smith was if things don't work out. I think that all of these guys have great potential but just imagine the long lasting hard feelings and distrust that a move like this would generate.

We've lost the television feed here in the Tri-Cities with a couple minutes to go. Looks like the game is in the Spartans hands. Great year for both teams. I just noticed the "54" on the back of Maryville's helmets and thought I'd give a shout out to our Rebel kin to say thanks for remembering Jake - from your friends at Sullivan South.

The MiniDome would seat 12,000 for football. I've heard of crowds up to 10,000 for the biggest high school matchups in NET but that doesn't happen too often. I think the Gate City VA - Sullivan South game had 8,000 this year and it isn't odd for South to have 2 or 3 games a year near the 7,000 level.

Well some of this is tongue-in-cheek but the fact that Kingsport city manager John Campbell has stated that Kingsport plans to annex most of the area within the "smart growth" boundary by around 2020 or 2021 gives this some basis in fact. The same article in the Times-News quoted forcasts that both Sullivan North and Sullivan South would be down to approximately 350 students each, Sullivan Central would be down to 800 and that the Kingsport City School System would have around 3,400 high school age students in the 2020/2021 time frame. This article ran a few months ago around the same time the city-county school board cooperation initiative was launched. I've heard people kidding around in the stands at S.S. about having to learn the tomahawk chop in a few years. Kinda depressing for me - I grew up in Lynn Garden, still there a lot, and have seen a real loss of identity in that community since the city annexed that part of town. I'd hate to see that happen to the S.S. area too. I can't see Kingsport running a high school with 3,000 + students and D-B has too much invested in the athletic facilities at J-Fred to even come close to trying to duplicate them elsewhere. The Bloomingdale community has done a great job of re-inventing Sullivan North as the second coming of Ketron High School. What say ye !

I'm going to have to find some cold weather Columbia Blue!

I'll throw out another theory. I think this new classification has caused a lot of people to lose interest in the high school playoffs. Think about it. DB, with a losing record beats South (who is supposedly the best team in NE TN) in a rout. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE QUALITY OF FOOTBALL IN NORTHEAST TN? Give me DB vs. Oak Ridge anytime. There are 3 local teams (South, Greenville, and Elizabethton) in the semifinals. I think NET football is in fine shape. You can't base much on this year's D-B - South game. D-B just came out with the intensity and that was the difference in that game. I know a lot of D-B people that didn't even come to the game because they thought they were going to get their socks knocked off. That's what you might have expected on paper but as they say, that's why you strap on the helmets play the game. Boone beat all three city schools, South lost to two of them but they beat Boone twice this year. South is finally getting their house back in order and may just go all the way. I'd suggest dumping the Times-News and subscribing to TriCitiesSports.com. They do a much better job of covering all high school sports.