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[Ripklaw]

Mr.Teel....it was the during the summer two a day practice of 1985 when COACH mentioned to us that we would fly to Texas to play a football game... instead we traveled to the University of Virginia to scrimmage W.T.Woodson of Fairfax County at Scotts stadium in Hampton City school buses... That 1985 team returned 17 seniors from the state runner-up team that lost to the T.C.Williams Titans the year before at Scotts stadium aired on WVEC channel 13...My first time ever at UVa...We visited the Cavaliers practice facility and then got dressed for the scrimmage..The guys on our team were so eager to get back on the artificial turf called " Astro Turf " believing that it allowed you to run faster...We got there early and must have practiced for at least an hour before Woodson showed up on nice fancy charter buses..The guys on their team got off those nice buses wearing shirts and ties with nice gym bags and all..It didn't seem as if they were ready to play football that day because they took their time getting dressed and coming on to the field to warm up...By the time they did warm up yelling.." who we want!!! CRAB MEAT!!.."we were in after halftime mode...the first play from scrimmage Mike Bullock went about 60 yards for a touchdown...the guys say we won 48-0...After that we were in a jamborie at Todd stadium and you know how those things go...Our first game of the season we traveled to Green Run. They had Keith Gorganus, Matt Darby and Alton Grizzard.. Some of the other players were laughing at our team as we got off the bus asking us if we were the JV team...It was tough. Their kicker missed some field goals that night and that reciever never caught that touchdown in the endzone.. We won 7-6..Then we traveled to GW Danville...i remember the Danville team serving us lunch with their muscle shirts on with the weight lifting logo mentioning 300lb Club...Their fans stood outside what we consider a terrible locker room facility laughing at us mainly because of our size. The locker room had no running water, wood benches, old ruster lockers, and poor lighting... i mean it was the pitts..We won 21-7...That season the Peninsula District was tougher..Every team seemed good or could beat you except for Laffeyette, Ferguson and Phoebus.. Denbigh, Menchville, Warwick, Kecoughtan, Bethel, all were tough. If i'm not mistaken Warwick went to the state championship in another division that year.We went on to play Kempsville and quarterback Keith McMeans at Kellam High and he was tough. He scored on us twice that game on quarterback keepers. Halftime of that game Kempsville lead 13-12..We eventually won 25-13 thanks to Stewart Creighton and Will Jeter's touchdowns..Then it was Deep Creek at Todd staduim...They had a running back that had over 2,000 yards..We ended up blowing them out...Then we played Monacan from the Richmond area in the rain at Todd stadium and Stew ran for over 200 yards in the mud..Then we went up to Fairfax County for the re-match against the 1984 defending state champion T.C.Williams Titans who were ranked in the U.S.A. TODAY before that game..They had lost one game in two years...We beat them 16-0 giving them their second lost of the season.. We finished that season 14-0...the following week we were ranked # 16 in the U.S.A TODAY.. Yeah i agree with COACH..it would have been fun to go to Texas or anywhere out the state to play one of those top teams around the country...It's just that teams from Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Northern Virginia etc.. are just as good as any of them- Ripklaw

[OSTiger'06]

great story! I agree with u but espn and usa today only hear about fla and texas saying thats the ONLY places football is played but our area has some of the top players in college football today!!! look at Florida (Percy Harvin) and Va. Tech (Hall, Adibi, Boone, Taylor, Ore etc) and you can see theyrehas been great football played here for years as I can see since im an '88 baby lol

[757Evans87]

I think against teams from other states we would not have too much of a hard time especially the peninsula district. i mean florida, texas and maybe ohio but thats really it to me. i aint doubting other states talent but virginia has some great teams that alot of colleges skip over because we aint a big state. one day va will have teams playing on espn on the regular like texas and florida do.

[OSTiger'06]

...u mean two teams wouldnt have a hard time from ur district evans...

[sixerfan885]

I can tell you this, looking at the teams from up north (ohio in particular) they are bigger, but more speed is here in VA. I have seen the ohio teams for the last 7 years and yes they are bigger, but not faster.

Hampton was rated in USA Today when they first started doing the polls roughly around 80'81' seasons.