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Oak Ridge visits Mount Juliet


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3 minutes ago, boyfromsi said:

So... you were there in the 70s?

Aw, the good ole days. lol. I think we have been pretty good here lately and I believe we would have played for a gold ball  or two if it wasn't for Catlick playing in the public division.  

Edited by oridgecat
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3 hours ago, GoPats2019 said:

I graduated from Oak Ridge High School. We were winning and competing for state titles during my high school days. Those have long gone.

I graduated in 1982 but did not play football. The Wildcats did win State my sophomore (1979) and junior (1980) years. It was a blast hanging out and watching my friends play. My senior year the team was 8  - 2 or 7 - 3 (can't remember which) and PEOPLE WANTED TO KNOW WHY THE TEAM WASN'T ANY GOOD THAT YEAR. Truth is they were darn good that year.

Oak Ridge is still a winning football school.

Steve Palmer, Class of ' 82

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The demographics in OR were much different back then (70s 80s and even 90s). We had quite a bit more kids to choose from back then. Since then we have had 1 plant close completely down (K25) which brought in a lot of jobs which = more kids. It would be nice if we had the luxury of pulling kids out of a city the size of a Murfreesboro. I would bet that most of the quality football athletes in that city are now going to Oakland. In my day they were all going to Riverdale. 99% of the kids we have on our team were born and raised here. We don't get hardly any transfers in and if a kid does transfer in from out of city the cost is extremely high (6 thousand plus last I checked). Clinton and Anderson County kids usually go to those schools and don't transfer very often. I don't think we have ever gotten an AC kid to transfer in, although we have had a few Clinton kids through the years and they have gotten a few of ours. OR is more or less an old folks town, and it’ll take awhile to get it back to what it once was in terms of having a sizable amount of youth to choose from- or it may never get back to what it once was. OR could grow so much if the federal government would let go of a lot of the land on the west end of the city, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Edited by SweetScience
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SS, think about this. I'm a little older than you are but  at one point in time we had 7 elementary schools: Cedar Hill, Elm Grove, Highland View, Woodland, Willowbrook, Linden, and Glenwood.   Each school had 3 age groups grasshoppers, minor pee wees and pee wees.  You do da maff.  That's 21 little league teams.  Plus we had the hand picked travel team The Atoms. and we had 2 Junior high teams that had 40 plus players year in year out.  That is 24 youth football teams to feed the high school program.  Eventually Elm Grove and Highland View shut down and Cedar Hill hung on for a few more years after that.  Now we have 3 youth teams total.  11under, 10 under and 8 under.  Each team has about 15 players.  And THAT is why the football program is not the power house that it once was.  Simply a numbers game.  Old folks town, very few kids and young families. 

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26 minutes ago, oridgecat said:

SS, think about this. I'm a little older than you are but  at one point in time we had 7 elementary schools: Cedar Hill, Elm Grove, Highland View, Woodland, Willowbrook, Linden, and Glenwood.   Each school had 3 age groups grasshoppers, minor pee wees and pee wees.  You do da maff.  That's 21 little league teams.  Plus we had the hand picked travel team The Atoms. and we had 2 Junior high teams that had 40 plus players year in year out.  That is 24 youth football teams to feed the high school program.  Eventually Elm Grove and Highland View shut down and Cedar Hill hung on for a few more years after that.  Now we have 3 youth teams total.  11under, 10 under and 8 under.  Each team has about 15 players.  And THAT is why the football program is not the power house that it once was.  Simply a numbers game.  Old folks town, very few kids and young families. 

Yep, even when I was a young kid the elementary schools still had football teams. (Glenwood, Linden, Woodland, Cedar Hill, and Willowbrook) Cedar Hill was disbanded when I was in 3rd grade and most of those kids ended up going to Glenwood where I went until my family moved on the west end and I did 4th and 5th grade @ Linden. The Atoms were still a thing when I was growing up. ORC, the Boy's Club has made some great strides recently. They hired Shawn Summers on there ,so things are starting to look up, but it is gonna take us awhile to get it back to what it once was, if it will ever get there again I'm not sure. 

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1 hour ago, SweetScience said:

The demographics in OR were much different back then (70s 80s and even 90s). We had quite a bit more kids to choose from back then. Since then we have had 1 plant close completely down (K25) which brought in a lot of jobs which = more kids. It would be nice if we had the luxury of pulling kids out of a city the size of a Murfreesboro. I would bet that most of the quality football athletes in that city are now going to Oakland. In my day they were all going to Riverdale. 99% of the kids we have on our team were born and raised here. We don't get hardly any transfers in and if a kid does transfer in from out of city the cost is extremely high (6 thousand plus last I checked). Clinton and Anderson County kids usually go to those schools and don't transfer very often. I don't think we have ever gotten an AC kid to transfer in, although we have had a few Clinton kids through the years and they have gotten a few of ours. OR is more or less an old folks town, and it’ll take awhile to get it back to what it once was in terms of having a sizable amount of youth to choose from- or it may never get back to what it once was. OR could grow so much if the federal government would let go of a lot of the land on the west end of the city, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Actually, there really isn't this huge talent disparity between Oakland and the other RuCo. Just about every program has a player or two that will be playing for a FBS program. Also keep in mind there are 5 HS just in Murfreesboro alone. Oakland thrives above the rest because every facet of the program is completely on board. Talent, Coaching, Feeder Program, Administrative support, it's all there. That's what it's going to take for OR to get back to winning titles, everybody has to be on board

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3 hours ago, oridgecat said:

Aw, the good ole days. lol. I think we have been pretty good here lately and I believe we would have played for a gold ball  or two if it wasn't for Catlick playing in the public division.  

 

 

3 hours ago, boyfromsi said:

So... you were there in the 70s?

How about the 90s? (1991)

 

I was not in HS in the 70s.

 

Edited by GoPats2019
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