IanMackaye

The city is working at being young. I can see that when I drive through town a couple of times per week. You’re right about the other things, though. Oak Ridge was good at sports when other schools hadn’t quite caught up to it. Now the good large schools in the area has caught up or passed OR.

Are you sure? TSSAA lists the school at about 1400 students. That’s an average of 350 kids per grade. I can’t remember OR ever being bigger than that.

That sounds like overall school culture. If you can’t get excited for your team what can you get excited about.

Slipped.

Tradition doesn’t seem to be getting kids to play sports at OR.

I got busy this week and never got back here. I talked about “tradition” because someone mentioned it earlier. Might of been Willie. My point is that OR is now relying on trophies they got years ago and wins that happened years ago, not on anything going on now. Eventually that’s going to rot because kids require some now winning to know what it feels like and to crave it. That goes for all sports.

Sniffed means that the teams at least played for a championship. Girls basketball was runner up in 2016 but last won in 1997, according to TSSAA. Boys were runner up in 2014 but last won in 1963. Boys cross country were runner up in 2015 but last won in 2007. Girls cross country last won in 2010. In fact, that was the last state title in any sport from OR, according to TSSAA. Football was last runner up in 2005 and last won in 1991. No other sports have anything recently. Zero wins in the last nine years. That looks like a tradition that relies on long ago excellence not on today. To me that’s not a tradition any more and some other schools in the area have caught up and passed OR.

OR hasn’t even sniffed a second place trophy in any sport in a while, let alone win one, so I don’t know what “tradition” means there any more. Years ago it was a different story.

I've never seen Malone play football, but he progressed remarkably last spring as a track and field athlete, improving so much in the triple jump that he went to State and made the All-PrepXtra team in the jumps. He improved his 400 down to the 52-53 range, which is getting there. With long legs, long speed, jumping ability, and the coordination to triple jump, he may surprise a few people on the football field. I watched the triple jump at the Sectional meet and thought he had potential.

For that matter, does OR even have soccer, baseball, softball, tennis, or track teams? Do spring sports and spring football even happen at Oak Ridge?

Practice fields and track are garbage.

I was looking for the last OR championship at TSSAA and happened upon that page. I'd never seen it before.

Here is that information. Over the course of many decades, it is impressive.

Set the bar where you want to, but if you’re actually talking “winning” then it has to be state championships. The last one for Oak Ridge was about ten years ago.

Oak Ridge used to be the dominant sports program in the area and one of the pre-eminent programs in the state, but not any more. It’s been a while since OR won anything.

Except for track. Maryville, Catholic, Webb, HVA, OR, West, Fulton, AE, and others are still doing well combining football and track.

OR speed is too much for CC, this looks like the most athletic and speedy overall team at OR in a while.

I watched the first half on WVLT. Boy, OR is speedy, and it's not just Graham.

Why is it a problem to get butts in seats for OR games?

Turf fields are overrated I’m surprised that Oak Ridge is resorting to keeping up with the Jones’s. I saw the meet results and that 4x100 lineup was Thompson, Goskowitz, Coleman,Graham. Thompson must have been the one I was talking about coming out of blocks.

I don't think it was Jackson, who I have seen run before. This kid had long hair and was the clear winner of the first leg and then handed off to a tall, skinny kid who was blistering fast.

Jordan Graham was the anchor on Oak Ridge's 1st place 4x100 relay at the sectional track meet yesterday. He's much bigger than he was last year but looked very fast. Some of the others on that relay looked like they might play football, particularly the first runner.

By “track” you mean the paved walking track, correct? Or will this be an actual track?

In some ways this does seem like a forward thinking project since the goal is a multi-use stadium that would be used for more than just a few home football games per year. The area has quite a few restaurants and can be very pleasant, since it’s undergone a cleanup in recent years. I ate at Deans not long ago and was impressed and surprised at how nice the area is. I like the project except for a few things: Its a long way from the school. The team will practice on grass but then play home games on turf. I’m no expert but that seems like a disadvantage for OR. Parking is limited to a few small lots plus a lot of places a walk from the field. There’s no way to fix that. That big hill is always going to be a problem for OR’s aging population. Does OR even care about football or other sports like it used to? Except for caring about Higgins I’m not so sure. I’ve been to an empty basketball game or two while OR basketball is riding high. The school has a nice soccer stadium but the track and football practice field on campus look kind of old. It’s the same with baseball and softball fields over behind the bowling alley. It seems like a pipe dream to me. I could be wrong, though. The shopping area that replaced that old mall is coming along well and took quite a while to get going.

Where were the crowds?