People have asked me why I watch HS football over all of these years regardless of whether my kids participate or how far removed from HS I am. It's pretty easy, in 1985 my family moved to Rustburg from Halifax Co. I had a friend that his parents went to all of the Rustburg home games and close away games. Rustburg, at that time, had no stop lights and on Fridays in the fall you went to Red Devils' stadium to cheer them on. If i recall right the first game I attended was the '87 championship game between James Monroe and Rustburg. I honestly don't remember much about the game, i know the final score was 10-9 JM. What I remember was falling in love with everything about HS football, from the cool crisp fall weather, the smell and taste of hot popcorn and hot dogs, the taste and warmth of the hot chocolate on a day when you couldn't feel your hands, feet, or your butt from sitting on those cold aluminum bleachers, to the community of cheering on "your" team, and my personal favorite, at the time I was 11, was those pretty and exuberant cheerleaders keeping us excited about the game.
Since that cold Saturday game in late November/early December I've been hooked. I don't think of it being high school football, more appropriately it's Community Football. A shared zeitgeist among family, friends, and neighbors. That following year I began to attend all the home games and some of the close away games as well. I had the privilege of watching this amazing RB named Danny Davis #32 I believe. To this day, he's probably still in my Top 3 of best HS players I've ever seen. Wherever I've lived i followed that team. From Rustburg, to EC Glass when I got married in '94, back to Rustburg when my daughter was born in '98, to Northside in '01 when I transferred for my job with the Postal Service and we bought our first house off Peters Creek, to a stint at Cave Spring after my MS diagnosis, and then Salem where I've lived since '04 minus '10 when we were in Lynchburg after a bad exacerbation. That year I split time going to Salem or LCA games.
In late '09 I joined Preps, I found a new community of like-minded people as passionate about their teams as I was about mine. Over the years my posts have mellowed a bit as I learned my zealotry for Salem for my team could be considered rather annoying to fans of other teams. I think we all learn to dial it down a bit after our initial enthusiasm for finding the site. I began to meet people from the board which as a people person is my favorite aspect of being part of this community. I'll name a few names but if I fail to mention you don't take it as a slight. First I met Wikki at a benefit game between LCA and her beloved Lancers.I met Leftovers (Northside) at an All Star game held at William Fleming. I met infamous540 (Rockbridge) at a Salem-Fleming game on Rockbridge's week off. I met several players family members some who post and some that do not. I met DinwiddieProud at a Salem -Northside game last year when Dinwiddie had the week off. I've met a lot of nice people that knew me because I've posted that I'm in a red wheelchair and if you'd like to meet I'm pretty easy to find, but they don't post just read. Met HoosFan and Rke fan last year at the championship game. Met OMHDC, and Cutnjump this year as well as a couple more parents of Salem players this year. Without exception meeting these people has been amazing. I feel like as going to these games is a community event meeting the board posters is like seeing family members at a family reunion. So many of the members have helped me in numerous ways. After a couple of months in the hospital/nursing home some members put together the funds to help get me to the championship game last year. Seems like every few weeks I'm meeting someone new. Like I said if i forget our meeting I apologize. It has been a ltremendous pleasure to meet all of my preps family! Thank you all for the pleasure of your company and for being part of my family! I hope to meet many more of you in the near future.
Since that cold Saturday game in late November/early December I've been hooked. I don't think of it being high school football, more appropriately it's Community Football. A shared zeitgeist among family, friends, and neighbors. That following year I began to attend all the home games and some of the close away games as well. I had the privilege of watching this amazing RB named Danny Davis #32 I believe. To this day, he's probably still in my Top 3 of best HS players I've ever seen. Wherever I've lived i followed that team. From Rustburg, to EC Glass when I got married in '94, back to Rustburg when my daughter was born in '98, to Northside in '01 when I transferred for my job with the Postal Service and we bought our first house off Peters Creek, to a stint at Cave Spring after my MS diagnosis, and then Salem where I've lived since '04 minus '10 when we were in Lynchburg after a bad exacerbation. That year I split time going to Salem or LCA games.
In late '09 I joined Preps, I found a new community of like-minded people as passionate about their teams as I was about mine. Over the years my posts have mellowed a bit as I learned my zealotry for Salem for my team could be considered rather annoying to fans of other teams. I think we all learn to dial it down a bit after our initial enthusiasm for finding the site. I began to meet people from the board which as a people person is my favorite aspect of being part of this community. I'll name a few names but if I fail to mention you don't take it as a slight. First I met Wikki at a benefit game between LCA and her beloved Lancers.I met Leftovers (Northside) at an All Star game held at William Fleming. I met infamous540 (Rockbridge) at a Salem-Fleming game on Rockbridge's week off. I met several players family members some who post and some that do not. I met DinwiddieProud at a Salem -Northside game last year when Dinwiddie had the week off. I've met a lot of nice people that knew me because I've posted that I'm in a red wheelchair and if you'd like to meet I'm pretty easy to find, but they don't post just read. Met HoosFan and Rke fan last year at the championship game. Met OMHDC, and Cutnjump this year as well as a couple more parents of Salem players this year. Without exception meeting these people has been amazing. I feel like as going to these games is a community event meeting the board posters is like seeing family members at a family reunion. So many of the members have helped me in numerous ways. After a couple of months in the hospital/nursing home some members put together the funds to help get me to the championship game last year. Seems like every few weeks I'm meeting someone new. Like I said if i forget our meeting I apologize. It has been a ltremendous pleasure to meet all of my preps family! Thank you all for the pleasure of your company and for being part of my family! I hope to meet many more of you in the near future.
Last edited:
