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I am interested in seeing how much they progress in year two under Fitz myself. I do believe they will improve but how much will be the question. -
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I've always been a football fan first and then if you have a band that's awesome.No question that DB has one of the best bands in the country and the whole region should attend at least one DB game just to see their band. I don't know if Nick Saban could come to Kingsport and build a football program that could match the Dobyns Bennett band's success.That said,as mentioned before, a couple of things would have to change in order for the Tribe to just win a state championship on the field.Besides a program that starts from the peewee teams and goes all the way to J Fred with all coaches and weight training { in time }on the same page. Sometimes it also takes a little luck like the 1998 Vols .There are a lot of great athletes at a lot of big schools around the state and just because you want something doesn't mean your going to build a program like Alcoa has. Yes,start at the bottom and have guys that are quality coaches teaching at every level is 100% the first step. Parents can make it a lot easier by getting their young athletes into an early start with conditioning and weights as well when they are old enough to lift.If your son is a man in the weight room before he gets to DB , then it won't take a "Dobbs" coach to make him competitive against other schools athletes when it comes to strength. -
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A complete cultural change happened at Greeneville and the administration and community opened up their checkbooks. What a lot of people don't know is Ballard was Zeller's OC for many years and stopped coaching for two years because Zeller and Ballard didn't see eye to eye on some things. Zeller lead Greeneville to it's first ever Semi Final appearance in 2000 and lost 28-12 at Maryville and had them in the Quarter Finals in 2002 and 2003. Z was a great coach but lost some control when it came to making workouts mandatory. (He learned from that Mistake and it was at LC when i coached with him.). Z was let go going into my Senior Year and was replaced by Steve McCurry who was the one that turned the program around. Steve had won a 4a state championship at AC Reynolds in Asheville and made the administration completely redo the weight room with new equipment, had a football period at the end of the school day to lift, started devil camp, and brought in coaches like Danny Bentley (Still the OL coach), Ballard as the OC, Cody Baugh (QB coach and still there), and even Spradlen who is Greeneville's head coach now as the DB's Coach. McCurry only coached for two seasons at Greeneville and took a team that had a losing record the year before and finished my Senior Year making it to the Quarters and having a 10-3 record and then followed it up with a Semi Final appearance the next year with an 11-3 record and back to back conference championships. Loved McCurry to death but the recession hit and the story i heard was he was still buying new equipment for the team that the Principal didn't authorize and his response was "I don't answer to you and only to Niswonger and Bewley" (Two huge donors). That was it for him and they Promoted Ballard shortly after that. Greeneville had always been relevant ever since the the late 70's under Coach Fred Sorrell's. Since Sorrell's took over in 1977 Greeneville overall winning percentage is over 76%. The biggest reason people might not have thought Greeneville was "Good" until Ballard was Greeneville always played up Classification wise and could never get over the hump. (When there were 3 classifications we played 3a, when it went to 5 we played 4a). Greeneville is the largest its ever been with 953 students and where playing teams 2 or 3 times there size back in the day (I had a little over 800 kids in the school when i graduated in 2008). Other teams always would know they would be sore after a game but depth took over and never won a Championship until Greeneville played in the classification the TSSAA actually assigned them. You had names like Dustin Moore (1993 Mr Football for 3a and who Phillip Fulmer said was one of the greatest athletes he ever recruited), James "Mud Turtle" Mayes, Brigham Lyons, Byron Gillespie, Frankie Debusk (National Champion Qb at Furman with GQ), Jasmine Lowery, Cody Baugh, The Greenway Brothers, Joe Watson (Furman), etc. Now the cultural is from the Pee Wee league up and you grow up as a young kid wanting to wear the Greene and White. Here is a really good link when it comes to anything Greeneville Football related. https://greenevillefootball.com/ I also don't coach anymore. Z told me i was to smart with how the school systems are ran these days and ended up going into real estate in Knoxville which has been a great decision for my life.
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