k12koop

The players and coaches for CAK played a great game tonight and should hold their heads high! I am a Alcoa fan but I wanted to let the guys know that winning the game does not make you a winner. Playing as you did tonight is what truly makes you a winner. Great game and I look for the next time we meet on the field.

I dont have a specific score.... I do think it will be high 20's to low 40's for both teams and I feel the team that puts the last points on the board will win. I think it will be a classic battle of titans... This will be the best football game of the season!

CAK and Maryville were the only 2 teams I would go to see again.... CAK just had a very good team that was out coached and slightly out talented. The others, Good pasture & DCA specifically, just were not in the same league as CAK.

I came from a great tradition of football in Alabama. Our team won the state 2 of four years in the late 70's early 80's. It is a great game that i played all the way to college. I know what it takes to have a great football team. Alcoa has that spark. Most football programs have cycles. Alcoa just is a football player making machine! (I moved to Alcoa a few years back because my blushing bride is from here). I cant tell you why it is so other than tradition and pride but Alcoa does produce some incredible athletes. And it is very much a year over year thing. I have had the fortune to watch some of these kids play since they were tikes. I can remember watching Cobb as a Freshman and wondering how he even could walk around on those sticks God have given him for legs. (This also applies to others too not just Cobb) Some how, some way, maybe it is the water or something, these kids turn into great athletes. it is very easy to think that Alcoa has to be doing something to keep the pool of talent they do but as an outsider to Alcoa i can tell you it just happens. If you don't believe come over and watch some peewee football here some time. Look at all the kids. Come back in 5 years and watch them again. In closing, I can tell you that when we moved back i was not really interested in living in Alcoa at first till i spent 3-4 months here by myself till my wife had finished her job and our boys were on summer break and could move over. If you are not from here you will think it is some small bedroom community of Knoxville, However if you ever get the chance to see how the teachers react to the students, how there is an honest to God family atmosphere in the schools, and where Alcoa pride is not just a saying but a way of life. Till you see how they rank academically not only in the state but against the national average and what fine young people there are in this tiny school. When you see these things you can finally understand. Probably the most telling thing to consider about the tradition and expectations of Alcoa sports is that in a school of less then 500 that they field a team of 80 or so boys. Figuring that half of the students are girls, many of who are good athletes as well, it speaks volumes of what it means here to be an Alcoa Football player.

Fulton.... Another Alcoa fan here... guys go big tonight. I want another state championship weekend like last year so I can watch 3 local ( to me) teams play in the burro. Makes spending the gas & Hotel money to go see the games a little easier!

Alcoa Vs CAK... I think Alcoa will win this one. Alcoa will have to play the full game because if you watched the first match up of the season CAK can play some football in a pinch. I don't see this as and issue for the win as i am sure both teams know that it is a win or go home situation. I would agree with an earlier poster that CAK was one of the better match ups this year for one half of football. The problem with that is that a football game has two halves. For the SR's of both teams. For some of you this will be your last football game of your career, don't let a minute of it slip by with out a 100% effort. You don't want to look back and think I could have played a little better or have tried a little harder. Alcoa will win but all the kids who play football and give it their all are all winners!!!

I too read the article in the paper. What a lot of people do not understand is that winning does not make you a winner. The young men who struggle and work hard and give of themselves for their team are the real winners. Football is over one day; the life lessons from football are never over. Good luck guys, I would love to read that you won a game to go with being real winners in life!!! Koop

I think those numbers are incorrect. I think at the highschool in Alcoa they sold close to 1k worth of tickets prior to the game. I wonder if the numbers show do not include pre-sales. Also, I watch 3.5 of the 5 games on 2 tickets so I know the numbers do not represent what me and my family (5) did or did not see.

I wanted to let the Players from GP and their coaches know that you guys played a good game with a lot of heart and determination. If you are a SR and that was your last game I wish you good fortune on your life after football. It may be hard to see it right now but by sticking with it thru good and bad is what makes you a real winner. I have said this before, but it is especially true after your last game, the lessons you learned playing ball and friends you made along the way will be with you long after this season is just a footnote in the history books.

And a closing thought, which came to me as I re-read all your post on this thread, your holding Shivy’s in check to just two touchdowns would have still be more than Gp's 3 points. And if you had not been so pompous in your other posts I would have kept that one to myself.

Actually, and I hate to chime in on this kind of thing, if you wanted to be congratulatory you would have said congratulations on the win and we hope to see you next year. In your first post after the game it was congratulations, excuse, and a little whine. While I will agree there are some Alcoa fans who are not gracious winners, you do not know how to lose. “Congrats to Alcoa. You played the a good game and your defense came through when it had to.” (check the grammer from your post) This was how your post started and it was the right place to stop. When you lose you go up to the winner and say good game and we look forward to the next chance we meet, not try to minimize your loss as being just a couple of stops and an interception or two. After all that is always the difference in winning and losing a football game. The conciliatory winner is the one who gets to say that if it were not for those things you guys would have won. As for your comment about taking candy from a baby; stick with doing that instead of trying to taking a win on the football field from Alcoa, you will have better luck at it.

What i thought was bad... why did so many of the GP fans start leaving the game with over 8 minutes left on the clock?

I am a die hard Alcoa fan... as everyone should be for their home team. As for SC not having anything going for them you are are wrong. While it was true they were outmatched in the game they played a good ball game. The team never gave up, and never stopped trying. They made the best of the talent they had and they played as a team. It is young men like that which is the very best of high school football. If you think only winning makes you a winner you are so wrong. It is when after a tough loss that ends your high school career and you can look at your team mates and see in their eyes and know in your heart you gave it your all that had, then you are truely a winner. For most of the kids on the field they will never go past high school ball. They will however have a life time to remember thier team mates and what life lessons they learned from playing football. For the youngmen that played your last game last night. I salute you for your heart and hope you can always look back to your days playing ball and have that secret smile that only people who played can understand.

For those at the game it was pretty much all Alcoa. The BTW team did not show me any kids with high athletic ability. They did play with great heart and determination and kept after it the whole game but they were not close to the team Alcoa from the stand point of being athletic or being diciplined. One thing i would like to comment on was sportsmanship... They played a great game from that stand point. They did bicker a little with each other but I think those young men played to the best of thier ability. However, just like in life, sometimes your best is not enough. Losing a football game does not make you a loser. I dont know where BTW is located but if they are truely inner city kids from a rough neighborhood they did not act like hoods. I cannot say the same of some of the other teams we have played. If it was not a huge drive for them or us I would like to see us play them again. I think those kids are winners for their spirt !!!

I dont think anyone wants to see anybody get hurt in a game but i can tell you when i played both high school and college football that if someone was hurt i usally had other things to do besides take a knee. I have seen teams with small kids, say sub 10 do this as it is a way to control the kids while the adults take care of the business at hand. Not to seem mean or any thing but the game will more than likely go on unless there is a death on the feild. that is not be disrespectful or mean but just focused on the task at hand. I do think it is the right thing to do to clap when a player is able to get up on his own or with assitance and carry themselves off the feild as a sign of respect to someone who has given there all in a game.