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.

A closing thought for the McCallie players.... you guys played a great game, filled with spirt and sportsmanship. I know loosing is never fun but you guys are winners in my book. Few teams play as hard and as pasionately as you guys do. Last nights game may have been the best high school football game i ever watched!!!

All high school football players should watch a replay of that game. It was played with great heart, great sportsmanship and intensity. Maybe the best high school football game i have ever watched. surely in the top 5 Everyone, both sides, played an epic game!!!

I think in the end it will come down to two things.... home field advantage and Alcoa going deep into the play book. In both of thier loses they played a very vanilla game and did not maximise thier strength of a widely varying offensive capability. I do not discount McCallie either, they were the best team we played last year behind Maryville. Last year they had the home field advantage.

My prediction is for heck of a good football game!!! After last weeks game against l do not see how folks say that this years team is not on par with last years team. Thier strengths are slightly different then last years team but certainly on par with last years team. They are capable of amazing offense and defense when they are turned loose... I think that McCallie is as well but dont discount the home feild advantage so I give the slight edge to Alcoa. I agree with the other poster in that this very well might come down to special teams play and turnovers.

how about to win.... i can tell you most Alcoa folks would rather beat Maryville than win the statechampionship

This is an odd one, and based soley on one game but it would be the youngmen who played for Gatlingburg- Pitman (sp?) from last years game with Alcoa. When you are losing by 90 points and you play hard all the way to the final buzzer you are a winner, no matter what the scoreboard says...

What amazed me about Rogan is the punishment he took. It is hard to tell his size and weight but he took a beating in that game and popped back up everytime looking for more...

I think Friday you will see a real smash mouth football game. After a tough loss last week I think that Alcoa will be out for blood. It dont think it would matter who they play I think they will be unbeatable. The only way they dont walk away with a huge win would be if they are so fired up that the make a lot of foolish mistakes in a huge way and Loudan brings their "A" game.

My thoughts on the comment are it should have been more like " We played a great game tonight, our kids played thier heart out, but we came up short in a hard fought game. We will work on our errors and be a better team for them, we will come back a stronger and better team next week". To say that you would not see a better team in 2a sounds like to me the reason we did not win is because we are a 2a team playing a 3a team. I was not there for the whole conversation the coach had, and often the press does not give you the whole story, but you have to be real careful in what you say and what people will take away from what they read. In fact today I heard someone I dont know say they same thing about the comment, so i dont think i am the only one who might have taken it wrong.

I was at the game last night, as I have been at every game for the last couple of years. I am not sure why you feel like i said they should have passed the ball. Never said that, in fact the short pass/screen to Rogan was a coaching great call, as well as the fake and quarter back keeper for the 2pt conversion. Masterfull coaching!!! What i did say was that your coach reacted well to what he saw and came up with plays that allowed you to win a really hard fought classic football game. As for your line really stepping up that is open for some debate. They played a good game and learned and adjusted to the defensive attack of Alcoa. I would think that you would have to agree that your coaches had a hand in that. Again a terrific night of football, no matter which side of the field you sat on.