Fast Times at William Blount High

[BarneySox2007]

The New Word of the Day at William Blount is "Pizza Chip".

Shad said I wish I had never given that Pizza Chip my phone number or I might have stayed.

[Governm]

After having time to read through this whole thread it blows my mind how black and white people's thinking is. Before the season, a lot of people - myself included - thought WB could have a winning season in 2021. Now a lot of people will just say they thought that because the schedule was easy, but you don't predict a winning season for a team like WB unless you feel like the program is trending upward. And at the time it seemed that way because WB was coming off back to back 4-win seasons. That may not seem like a big deal but it was for WB because the Govs hadn't won more than 3 games in a season in over a decade (although WB technically won 4 games in 2011 but had to vacate the Central win). So a lot of people had high expectations for the Govs, but things fell flat for one reason or another. I'll admit that I haven't really been in the loop with what's going on with WB football for the past year and most of you know why. Frankly, my mind has been other places. Having said that, I had been hearing rumors for well over a year that Shad was looking to retire and they were actively grooming Bosco to take over when Shad retired. Obviously, that plan was (almost certainly) scrapped when Bosco took the Eagleton job. I mean maybe his ties to the program could lure him back, but I doubt it. It just seems like he'd have an easier time winning games at Eagleton than he would at WB. Plus I wasn't super crazy about his offenses at WB anyway. But back to my original point, this thread has been full of negativity, but the recent past of WB's football program hasn't been all negative. Sure, 2021 was a really disappointing year, but it is nonsense to compare WB to Heritage and act like the program is completely dead. I also don't get all the fatalistic comments about a lack of interest from coaches. I remember people saying similar things before Ridge and Shadowens were hired. Tom Kreager even said there was no way Shadowens would touch the WB job. No, there's nothing new. People still say the same things they've always said. I don't know who WB is going to hire and if that person will succeed, but I figure you can only go up after getting destroyed by teams like Karns in 2021. 

Edited January 15, 2022 by TheGreatWallofAlnwick
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[orngnblk]

4 hours ago, TheGreatWallofAlnwick said:

After having time to read through this whole thread it blows my mind how black and white people's thinking is. Before the season, a lot of people - myself included - thought WB could have a winning season in 2021. Now a lot of people will just say they thought that because the schedule was easy, but you don't predict a winning season for a team like WB unless you feel like the program is trending upward. And at the time it seemed that way because WB was coming off back to back 4-win seasons. That may not seem like a big deal but it was for WB because the Govs hadn't won more than 3 games in a season in over a decade (although WB technically won 4 games in 2011 but had to vacate the Central win). So a lot of people had high expectations for the Govs, but things fell flat for one reason or another. I'll admit that I haven't really been in the loop with what's going on with WB football for the past year and most of you know why. Frankly, my mind has been other places. Having said that, I had been hearing rumors for well over a year that Shad was looking to retire and they were actively grooming Bosco to take over when Shad retired. Obviously, that plan was (almost certainly) scrapped when Bosco took the Eagleton job. I mean maybe his ties to the program could lure him back, but I doubt it. It just seems like he'd have an easier time winning games at Eagleton than he would at WB. Plus I wasn't super crazy about his offenses at WB anyway. But back to my original point, this thread has been full of negativity, but the recent past of WB's football program hasn't been all negative. Sure, 2021 was a really disappointing year, but it is nonsense to compare WB to Heritage and act like the program is completely dead. I also don't get all the fatalistic comments about a lack of interest from coaches. I remember people saying similar things before Ridge and Shadowens were hired. Tom Kreager even said there was no way Shadowens would touch the WB job. No, there's nothing new. People still say the same things they've always said. I don't know who WB is going to hire and if that person will succeed, but I figure you can only go up after getting destroyed by teams like Karns in 2021. 

It's funny you bring up Ridge being interested.He took over a GB program that had the best upcoming Freshman class in over 10 years and the 8th grade class was full of outstanding lineman to compliment that strong freshman class and he was a bust.Couldnt win a big game for nothing one of the most disappointing 4 year stretch with the talent we had and he used that "Success" as he should when the talent was gone to go home to WB.We were tickled he got that job just as you all were except you all thought you all got a football coach but in turn just got a mathematical genius.He has done more in that genre than he ever would as a "Coach".I will say he was an excellent wrestling coach because he could use his math background,it backfired in football.Shadowens= I actually thought you all got a very good coach from his background but I guess as in Ridges resume Talent over rules coaching some times.Good luck with your hire!

[BarneySox2007]

The hardest thing for whoever gets this job will be restoring the feeder system which is totally broken and ship wrecked. It will be like working double time to do that and it may take three or four years before seeing anything come out of it. Another way to fast stability is hitting the transfer portal and walking the halls, it sure didn't hurt Matt Lowe in his quest to bring Powell out of the ashes. And for those that are somewhat weak in math it's a lot cheaper for a kid to come from the city that borders the school right now than it is for the kid to go from the county and pay 2,300 tuition at Maryville or 900 to Alcoa. So many advantages William Blount has over the two power houses but they can't see the forest for the trees that are in their way. Also been out of the loop and don't know what their new facilities are going to look like but I pray it's not like the one at Heritage. That thing looks like Jim Clayton brought in a vintage double wide and sat it down beside the ticket stand and got out of dodge.

Edited January 15, 2022 by BarneySox2007

[strongx]

Has there been a search committee put together yet? 

[Red Rebels]

The job was posted on 1-12-2022 on the BCS Webpage. It closes 1-19-2022. Not much time to get the word out and put together a deep pool of candidates.

[BarneySox2007]

4 hours ago, Red Rebels said:

The job was posted on 1-12-2022 on the BCS Webpage. It closes 1-19-2022. Not much time to get the word out and put together a deep pool of candidates.

This could only mean the powers that are in charge already have their man which must be on staff. If so please take everyone to the local vet and have them all dipped for fleas from the previous leadership so none of them will bring anything back.

[strongx]

8 hours ago, Red Rebels said:

The job was posted on 1-12-2022 on the BCS Webpage. It closes 1-19-2022. Not much time to get the word out and put together a deep pool of candidates.

On the positive side, it sounds like they are aware the coach quit and will be needing a new address to send the check. Hopefully there are guys on staff who know what needs to be done and are willing to work to get it done.

[rebelwoman87]

Where’s @Shadroach? 

[BarneySox2007]

40 minutes ago, rebelwoman87 said:

Where’s @Shadroach? 

May have said my work is done here , mission completed no need to jinx it.

[chs1984]

On 1/15/2022 at 8:09 AM, BarneySox2007 said:

The hardest thing for whoever gets this job will be restoring the feeder system which is totally broken and ship wrecked. It will be like working double time to do that and it may take three or four years before seeing anything come out of it. Another way to fast stability is hitting the transfer portal and walking the halls, it sure didn't hurt Matt Lowe in his quest to bring Powell out of the ashes. And for those that are somewhat weak in math it's a lot cheaper for a kid to come from the city that borders the school right now than it is for the kid to go from the county and pay 2,300 tuition at Maryville or 900 to Alcoa. So many advantages William Blount has over the two power houses but they can't see the forest for the trees that are in their way. Also been out of the loop and don't know what their new facilities are going to look like but I pray it's not like the one at Heritage. That thing looks like Jim Clayton brought in a vintage double wide and sat it down beside the ticket stand and got out of dodge.

Mr. Barney, as always, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t I remember seeing on here where Hammontree, when he first took the Heritage job, had HUGE numbers in his first 9th grade and middle school classes? We know how that worked out. But I agree with you, you must start with the feeder system. That’s what we did at my last stop, and it paid off big time starting in year 3. 

[BarneySox2007]

7 hours ago, chs1984 said:

Mr. Barney, as always, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t I remember seeing on here where Hammontree, when he first took the Heritage job, had HUGE numbers in his first 9th grade and middle school classes? We know how that worked out. But I agree with you, you must start with the feeder system. That’s what we did at my last stop, and it paid off big time starting in year 3. 

He went in and shook the tree really hard to get all the rotten fruit to drop which half fell off when he did. A lot of parents ran over the previous coaches out there before his time from what I've been told. He was sort of on his way to turning things around at one point then got into a group a few years back that all quit on him one by one until he had hardly anyone worth sticking out on the field. They did have a decent middle school program for a change this past year which may help in the future but who knows. Heritage is what I call a dead program kind of like Sequoyah, Claiborne County, Union County or Cosby. It's like you keep going by the hospital and been checking on them for years but still remains in a coma. Now to make matters worse we have the new Eagleton School which did have a freshmen team this past year and played three games against other teams JV squads which wasn't really fair but once this starts to come on Heritage will take the hit far as losing players to it. I've heard some say they will drop to 5A which won't mean anything when you suck so bad you can't even compete in 2A with what you have now. Once Eagleton gets going we might see a Heritage team with 25-30 players top counting freshmen and that's what I mean by dead. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by BarneySox2007