South Pittsburg vs Marion County (Pirates vs Warriors)

[CougarDadx2]

16 hours ago, reaction said:

I'll try to find out tomorrow.

Word on the AL side of the line is AHSAA and TSSAA could not agree on it being a counted win / loss for Boyd, and a no record for NJ. NJ already had the win by forfeit from DAR and could not have a second win / loss on the record for the date. "Rules" got in the way of a good contest.

[chs1984]

No dog in this fight, but at my last stop we had kind of a similar situation. We had a rivalry game that our HC wanted to drop from the day he took the job. But, for financial reasons, the administration wouldn’t let him. After a few years, the administration relented, and the series was ended. The local media didn’t understand our coach’s reasoning and they made a huge deal about it. BTW- If I was SP, I would end the series. 

[rlh]

1 hour ago, chs1984 said:

No dog in this fight, but at my last stop we had kind of a similar situation. We had a rivalry game that our HC wanted to drop from the day he took the job. But, for financial reasons, the administration wouldn’t let him. After a few years, the administration relented, and the series was ended. The local media didn’t understand our coach’s reasoning and they made a huge deal about it. BTW- If I was SP, I would end the series. 

Ending a 98 year series isn't something one does lightly even if it is the bigger school acting chicken.  Furthermore, its always Jasper talking about consolidating the 3 H.S. in the county when they are in fact the problem.

[OLD PIRATE]

6 hours ago, rlh said:

Ending a 98 year series isn't something one does lightly even if it is the bigger school acting chicken.  Furthermore, its always Jasper talking about consolidating the 3 H.S. in the county when they are in fact the problem.

Old Pirate says, Jasper has essentially ended the series, so SP should seek more favorable opponents. It is obvious Jasper has become fixated with South Pittsburg’s continued long standing success over the Warriors. Taking in fact that the Jasper program has had coaches steal playbooks, arrested and fired over unscrupulous leadership says all you need to hear. End the insanity now, let Jasper play with themselves leaving the Pirates forever more the best in the county while Jasper can boast Pruitt never lost to Grider. Winning 12 out of the last 14 years has a nice ring. Sadly that would have grown in favor of the Pirates. Time fer OP to go fishing to relax fer a spell. 

[TynerRamFan]

1 hour ago, OLD PIRATE said:

Old Pirate says, Jasper has essentially ended the series, so SP should seek more favorable opponents. It is obvious Jasper has become fixated with South Pittsburg’s continued long standing success over the Warriors. Taking in fact that the Jasper program has had coaches steal playbooks, arrested and fired over unscrupulous leadership says all you need to hear. End the insanity now, let Jasper play with themselves leaving the Pirates forever more the best in the county while Jasper can boast Pruitt never lost to Grider. Winning 12 out of the last 14 years has a nice ring. Sadly that would have grown in favor of the Pirates. Time fer OP to go fishing to relax fer a spell. 

If SP is looking for an opponent, remember to consider the Tyner Rams because we all remember those two exciting games in 2007(25-21) and 2008(28-21). Both were won by SP in the waning minutes of the 4th qtr. One on a defensive play, the other on offense!!

[Indian]

Everyone is riled up but let’s remember the purple players and likely the vast majority of their fans want the game played, now and in future seasons.

[The Drunken Sailor]

Just now, Indian said:

Everyone is riled up but let’s remember the purple players and likely the vast majority of their fans want the game played, now and in future seasons.

Agreed.  The talk of ending the series is ridiculous.  I understand that people are upset but this isn't one you end. A kid got sick with something that he didn't want and probably couldn't help. The same thing happened to Red Bank and no one is complaining about that game.  The same thing could happen to us in a couple of weeks.  

 

I had much more typed out but it isn't worth it.  Let's just say that the series should continue on. Anyone who wants it to end must not have liked it much anyway to want to throw it away after all of these years.  

[CoachFreshwater]

19 hours ago, reaction said:

Boyd can take there spot. 

This game definitely needs to be back on both teams schedule in the future!

[orngnblk]

21 minutes ago, The Drunken Sailor said:

Agreed.  The talk of ending the series is ridiculous.  I understand that people are upset but this isn't one you end. A kid got sick with something that he didn't want and probably couldn't help. The same thing happened to Red Bank and no one is complaining about that game.  The same thing could happen to us in a couple of weeks.  

 

I had much more typed out but it isn't worth it.  Let's just say that the series should continue on. Anyone who wants it to end must not have liked it much anyway to want to throw it away after all of these years.  

Great post!Outsider looking in but I wouldnt want to end it.

[sportman]

24 minutes ago, The Drunken Sailor said:

Agreed.  The talk of ending the series is ridiculous.  I understand that people are upset but this isn't one you end. A kid got sick with something that he didn't want and probably couldn't help. The same thing happened to Red Bank and no one is complaining about that game.  The same thing could happen to us in a couple of weeks.  

 

I had much more typed out but it isn't worth it.  Let's just say that the series should continue on. Anyone who wants it to end must not have liked it much anyway to want to throw it away after all of these years.  

If they want the series to continue then I think it would be respectful of them to play next years game at SP and then the next year we would be home again.  But with what there doing now what makes you so certain they want cancel any future games?  Just IMO. So it's alright for them to weasle out of this with no penalty? NOT!! Did you see how much money we lost on this game? And they had an off date. Id understand if they couldn't play it, but they can.  I guess your more tollerant than I am. This series has definitely lost some of it's luster in my eye's for sure. I use to root for Jasper some, but not anymore. I'll root for there kids, but not who's leading them. And I'm a long standing Alumni of SP. 

[pegleg]

From someone without a dog in the fight!

Where’s leadership when you need it?
I ask that question after learning that Marion County High School’s football program elected to pass on an alternate date to play South Pittsburg after the Warriors were forced to cancel last Friday’s game due to a Marion player testing positive for COVID-19.
This isn’t to criticize the original postponement. Any team in any sport that discovers one of its members has tested positive for the coronavirus has a responsibility to quarantine for 14 days, then forfeit if an alternate date can’t be agreed upon.
To do otherwise is to needlessly threaten the lives of not just your opponent, but your own teammates and those teammates’ friends, family and anyone else they may come in contact with. Though certain members of society will argue otherwise, this pandemic is real. We have more than 194,000 American dead to prove it.
But the state’s second oldest prep football rivalry is real, too. And for South Pitt — which has also lost a $15,000 pay day when Red Bank was forced to cancel its game with the Pirates for COVID-19 reasons — losing the Marion game is, at minimum, a $25,000 shortfall.
Not to mention the emotional toll it takes on the South Pitt and Jasper communities.
As longtime South Pitt coach Vic Grider said Tuesday morning as he recalled having to tell his Pirates there would be no game between the two bitter rivals this season: “It’s one of the two or three hardest conversations I’ve ever had with my teams. Twenty years ago I had to tell them we were out of the playoffs because we were going to have to forfeit games for having (unknowingly) played an ineligible player. The looks on their faces were almost the same this time. You see that look in their eyes. So much hurt and disappointment. As a parent, or a coach, you don’t ever want to see that look in the eyes of the kids you love.”
Grider certainly tried hard to remove that look. He asked Marion County coach Dale Pruitt to consider playing on Sept. 25, when the Warriors’ 14-day quarantine would have been at an end. Pruitt declined, citing a lack
of preparation time after having practice denied for two weeks due to COVID-19 protocols.
Yet knowing that Marion Co. had earlier played Sequatchie County on short notice due to a weather situation that moved the game from a Friday to a Thursday kickoff, Grider offered to move the Marion-South Pitt game from Friday to Saturday in order to give the Warriors the same preparation time they’d had for Sequatchie.
Again, Marion — which would have been a heavy underdog against the Pirates — declined.
Said Pruitt — the father of third-year University of Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt — to this newspaper on Monday: “The whole deal is the fact our kids are in the middle of a 14-day quarantine, where legally I can’t even be around them. We would come in on a Wednesday, after two weeks of not hitting, and try to get our kids ready in a short amount of time. That’s a big deal.”
It shouldn’t be that big a deal. Especially since the game plan and preparation should have been taken care of the week the game was originally to have been played, since Marion reportedly waited until almost 2 p.m. Central Time this past Friday to cancel.
If everything was on the up and up before last week, if Marion had been focusing all its energy on facing South Pitt until Friday afternoon, three days should be plenty of time to get ready a second time.
For those of us who’ve long wondered if anyone anywhere should be playing a contact sport in this pandemic, the argument to play has always centered on the kids, that the emotional risks to young people of not playing — depression, loss of interest in school, even suicide — overrides the health risks of playing.
If that’s true, what could be more important to the emotional health of every young man who plays football in Marion County for either Marion County High or South Pittsburg than playing this game? Whether you ultimately play it in September, October (Halloween’s supposedly canceled, why not give the county a real treat then?), or New Year’s Eve, just play it.
Beyond that, the life lesson of sports isn’t supposed to be about winning or losing, but about giving your best effort, regardless of the outcome. It’s kind of hard to do that if you don’t show up.
At the risk of pointing fingers from the top down, true leadership from Marion County schools superintendent Mark Griffith would be to order the Warriors and Pirates to play on Saturday, Sept. 26, at South Pitt, the coronavirus willing. Yes, Marion might get spanked on the scoreboard, as Grider’s Pirates did in 2015, when they lost at Marion by 41 points. But that’s not the point.
As Grider said of that defeat, the last one he’s suffered against the Warriors: “I was man enough to go compete because what kind of message would that send to our kids if we didn’t?”
What kind of message does it send now if Marion doesn’t compete?
How about this message: Whether fair or not, if this non-region game really isn’t rescheduled, and South Pittsburg decides to cancel the rivalry because of that, as has been rumored, no matter what Pruitt accomplishes from here on out, he’ll be remembered, at least throughout the Sequatchie Valley, as the guy who ended the second oldest rivalry in the state because he didn’t want to risk getting pummeled by the Pirates. -Mark Wiedmer TFP

[The Drunken Sailor]

11 minutes ago, sportman said:

If they want the series to continue then I think it would be respectful of them to play next years game at SP and then the next year we would be home again.  But with what there doing now what makes you so certain they want cancel any future games?  Just IMO. So it's alright for them to weasle out of this with no penalty? NOT!! Did you see how much money we lost on this game? And they had an off date. Id understand if they couldn't play it, but they can.  I guess your more tollerant than I am. This series has definitely lost some of it's luster in my eye's for sure. I use to root for Jasper some, but not anymore. I'll root for there kids, but not who's leading them. And I'm a long standing Alumni of SP. 

As you know, this is the craziest year I know of and a lot of weird things are happening.  To be honest, I didn't even think we would get to this point in the season.  I'm actually surprised that we started at all. We knew it would happen with one game and now it has happened with two.  

By TSSAA rules the game had to be cancelled.  I think we all agree to that even though I liked PirateMike's idea in a different thread of making the people who test positive sit and let everyone else play.  Then if there is a problem with more players then you can make the whole team sit out for 2 weeks.  As far as rescheduling goes, I wish it would get rescheduled but I didn't expect that it would.  That may be why I feel differently than a lot of people do apparently.  I get what Pruitt is saying about not wanting to play after sitting out 2 weeks.  Yes, he would get 3-4 days to prepare but you're kids have been sitting for 2 weeks so there is a chance of problems (injuries, etc.) ...ON THAT NOTE THOUGH, a lot of teams are going to be coming back from the same situation and will have to play games that are already scheduled.  So that part of the argument doesn't hold water.  The whole reason could be that he doesn't want to get beat, I don't know, I can't read his mind obviously.  But to just end the series is a bit much.  I have no problem with the game being at Beene next year, it would be fair actually.  But we can't end it.  If we end it then I have no reason to hate them continuously as much as I do now.  Then I'll have to start allowing my wife to start letting purple in the house.  Then she'll want to start planting purple flowers.  Sportman, I can't allow that.  For that reason alone we have to continue it!