IanMackaye

I follow track as much as I follow football. Unfortunately, I don't know of any track athletes who have gotten full rides. In the NCAA, track has 12.6 scholarships at fully funded schools, and they have to spread that around to every event group including cross country. Hardy is one of the better sprinters in the area, and he's one of the better jumpers in the state, but I doubt there is a "full ride" for him anywhere, not because he's not deserving but because they just arent there.

That's pretty funny. Gaddis is special. He may not be the best coach out there but he can captivate a group of kids, fans, and create a following like nobody I've ever seen or known. I'm glad he's back............he is WILD, CRAZY, he's a winner, and he's OURS!!!!!!!

I said this in another thread also, but I will say it again here. OR has a special group of coaches right now. I was at the game on Friday night, and your right that Gaddis was a wildman and those boys loved it. There's nothing like that feeling of following a great leader to a win. I also went to the Regional Cross Country Meet on Thursday because my nephew runs for Catholic in A-AA but I saw OR win both girls and boys AAA races, and the boys just killed everybody. Their coaches were wild, too, and ended up jumping in the pond at Victor Ashe Park surrounded by a bunch of screaming kids while the A-AA races were going on. They were crazy and the kids loved it. Green is wild like that too and his kids love it. You need to record this moment because Oak Ridge has a special group of motivators right now.

Scott is a real good coach. Learned under Prudden. We had a pretty good girls bb team before he left until the female came along and ran it in the ground basically. Give him a few more years and we will be right up there. Will we ever be as good as we were when Jill was HC? Prob not. Her and Burkey got AAU girls from all over the area to come play for us back then. Now we just have to play with the hand were dealt which should still be pretty good if Coach Scott sticks around.

Yes Scott is a very good coach who will get the program on the right footing. He will never have the AAU support that the old regime had, just not going to happen that way any longer, but I like his intensity, same as Green's. I think that he, Green, and Gaddis will all end up in the OR Sports HOF along with the track coach that is already in there who is still coaching. That's the quality of coaching going on in some sports at ORHS right now. It is very good in some of the sports. 

Will Middleton play this week? Not that it will matter against Powell.

Gaddis is the master motivator and program builder. He surrounds himself with talented coaches.

 

 

I like that about Gaddis and his coaches and about a bunch of the ORHS coaches, like Green and Scott in basketball and the track and cross country coaches. They all bring the energy and intensity and outwork almost everyone else.

They have never even played for one, let alone won one. We may not have won one in awhile, but at least we have played for a title in the past ten years. And I have never known them being worth much of anything in any other sport, either.

For reference sake, this is what ORHS has won since 1991, the last time they won a state football title:

Girls tennis (2)

Girls basketball (2)

Girls cross country (5)

Boys cross country (3)

You can add several runners up in each of those sports as well as football, boys soccer, and girls soccer during that time period.

Hardy placed third in the long jump at the state track meet. A kid who can jump over 22' should be able to contribute on the football field somewhere.

In keeping with recent tradition, Malik Hardy qualified for the State Track Meet in the long jump and the 100 and nearly made it in the 200. His long jump of 22-5 is legit.

What's left for OR spring practice?

I don't think that Bonds is with track any more. I haven't seen him in any results in a while. I don't think there are many football players still "playing" track now that the championships are coming up. Maybe just the Hardys.

Football has the most championships among the big "spectator" sports but cross country may actually have the most overall. I hope girls basketball becomes good again and football becomes a state contender .

According to TSSAA, football has seven. Boys cross country has eight. Girls cross country has six. OR has seven in boys track also, but it's been fifty years since the last one.

David Scott is a very good coach. Girls basketball will be back.

Every school in Tennessee is a "football school." Fewer produce good programs in every season. OR has that in the fall with football, girls soccer, and cross country, in the winter with basketball, and in the spring with track and boys soccer. Why doesn't OR have wrestling? Seems like a good way for football players to stay competitive in winter.

Aaron Green is a heck of a coach and is fun to watch, kind of like Gaddis. Both are passionate about winning.

OR has a sports Hall of Fame, doesn't it? Is there a website that lists membership? I'm sure that all of the coaches and players that you have mentioned are in there but I would like to see a list.

Good points on Martin. I did not realize how important he was to OR athletics other then being a legendary track coach. I don't know anything about McNamee outside of his winning. (Not as much winning walking around in the halls any more now that he and Prudden are retired or not coaching.)

Sure, I get it. I'm just an all-sports OR fan. If I have my eras right, TSSAA site has McNamee with five boys cross country titles and three girls along with a girls track title. Nine state titles is hard to come by. (Again if I have my eras correct, the current coach has three boys and three girls titles and a few runner up finishes.) From my initial list I switched Martin for Hale, whose 79 and 80 teams were really good. Fun to discuss. As for players I think gulmire does belong.

Oak Ridge's coaching Mt. Rushmore (includes sports other than football):

Armstrong

Hale

McNamee

Prudden

Had to leave off some serious firepower to limit that list--Rush, Martin, Gaddis.

I went to the game last night. When it is full the Arena is a great venue, and it sure was full last night. OR student section was as good as any I've ever seen. It looked like coaches got their athletes out for the game because I saw large groups from several sports especially football and track.

Along the same lines, since OR has over 30 team state titles and who knows how many individual state titles, OR must have had a long list of great coaches. I know of some of them like Gaddis, Hale, Armstrong, Martin (football and track?), Prudden (girls basketball), and McNamee (track). There must be a lot more than that since OR has won titles in other sports. I would like to see a list of the OR coaching greats in all sports too.

Is Blackerby's list just made up of football players, or does it include great Wildcats from all sports? A comprehensive list of great athletes from all OR sports would look pretty impressive I would think.

Wow. i am not sure how Gaddis finds the time to do all of that.

Track coaching staff is top notch. 

You could ask the same question about the track team. I read about Malik Hardy winning the long jump at a big track meet in Nashville the other day. Hardy is really quick too. I think several of the faster players are running track, like Bonds.

I don't have any rings--never won a championship in my life. I don't even have a rec league trophy.

You all can have the BadMinton and Tiddly winks Trophies , we'll take all the ones that really matter , FOOTBALL . Even Baseball and Basketball is just something to play and keep in shape till FOOTBALL rolls around ! lol

 

How many championship rings do you have yourself as a player or coach? Fan rings don't count.

Y'all sure know cross country.

No question. With 8 state titles for boys and 6 for girls as well as as several individual champions on the both sides (David Cardwell, John Sharpe, Karol Davidson, and Sarah Damen), OR knows cross country and distance running.

Take a look at the TSSAA records page and you will see the impressive number of state champions on the track, too, including short and long sprints and sprint relays, hurdles, distance and distance relays, throws, jumps, and multi events. OR seems to have won every event over the years. OR knows track.

With 8 state titles, I don't think we have to question that OR knows football.

With 2 state titles in boys basketball and 3 in girls basketball, you might argue that OR knows basketball. How many games did Coach Prudden win?

Add titles in girls and boys tennis, swimming, and boys soccer going back 60+ years.

OR puts out a well-balanced athletic program and has done so for a very long time like several other AAA schools including Dobyns Bennett, Brentwood, Farragut, Science Hill, and Houston.

With all the Sophomores that started on Oak Ridge this year I can see where they will be hard to deal with in two years. Looks like a good future a head. I like Oak Ridge because their fans think like us Maryville fans and that's what we need more of in high school football.

Maybe Maryville fans (and coaches) think like Oak Ridge fans and coaches rather than the other way around. Look at the TSSAA website and you'll see state championships for Oak Ridge teams in a bunch of different sports going back to the 1950s: football, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls track, boys and girls cross country, tennis, swimming. For as long as I've followed Oak Ridge sports (since the 1970s) they have had the philosophy that they want to try to win everything in every sport, and that's been part of the fabric of that community. Oak Ridge has hit a little dry spell except with their track runners and boys basketball team, but the winning attitude is still there in most sports, so they'll pick back up sometime.

Moore was one of the fastest short sprinters in the U.S. his senior year. Not many pure sprinters, let alone single-sport football players, could keep up with him.

OR has a history of making football players faster during track season.

I did see the soccer team out in the practice field nearest the tennis courts. It looked like they had 30-40 boys. The other group was on the track, and, now that I think about it, I think I saw girls out there too, so it must have been track. It was a huge group of kids, maybe 75 of them. I hope that some football players are out there.

Has football already started workouts for spring? I drive through Oak Ridge occasionally, and one day this week I saw a huge group of kids out on the track running. I couldn't tell who it was, but there were a lot of them. Maybe it was track, but it seems early for track or football.