The football team didn’t make it as far as I had hoped it would this year, but it did do something that is as important, arguably more important, than winning a state championship.
The 2008 Gridiron Leopards laid a foundation.
This year the Big Blue and White achieved something that the program and the fans have not seen done in over a decade of football, the Leopards had a winning season and made it to the playoffs.
For a long time, the attitude towards Banks County’s football team has been an expectation of losing. While other programs, (i.e. Commerce) have such a long history of winning that the average person would be hard pressed to recall a losing season. [For the record, it was 1992.]
The last winning season and the last time the Leopards made it to the playoffs was 1997, under the coaching of Dennis Marlow. Marlow coached Big Blue for 10 seasons and out of that decade of coaching, lead Banks County through seven winning seasons and four playoff trips.
One of the things Marlow says is important to football players and in life is some ageless wisdom passed down from his coach Jim Lofton.
“He taught us to do our best. If you do your best and come up short that is a whole lot better than not trying,” Marlow said.
While Banks County may have lost last Friday’s playoff game, early on they were giving it their all. Late in the game on Friday, the players where noticeably dragging and hanging their heads as Calhoun continued to run the score up. Blair Armstrong said after the game that Banks County has to learn to play through and continuing to fight.
It is very easy to get behind a winning team, and just as easy to place blame on the coach after a loss.
Marlow says the type of people you want around, are the people who are there for you when things are not going good.
“It’s easy when you are on top to get everybody behind you. To me the measure of a man is how good he treats you when everything is not going good. The players have faith in this coaching staff, and this coaching staff has faith in these players.”
Despite the scoreboard last Friday ticking away the Calhoun points lead, at the end of the game Banks County has achieved something that is going to help next year’s team. A record to fall back on that says the Leopards are good enough and have what it takes to hold a position in the region.
Just because Calhoun was a better team this year and knocked Banks County out in the first round, doesn’t mean that the Leopards can go back to being just the Podunk school team everyone has regarded it as.
Ironically, even with a successful coach like Marlow, Banks County was knocked out each of the four times in the playoffs during the first round.
Marlow said it best, “It seems like we don’t have the best luck at the draw. [Banks County] certainly doesn’t have anything to hang their heads on. They have laid a good foundation for next year. If you do the best you can do then you are a winner.”
Justin Poole is sports editor of The Banks County News.
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