Do you know these football players?
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Coach Rick Tomberlin shared this picture with me a while and I thought it was interesting. He shared a few thoughts about the guys in the picture and that football season.
“We were at football camp, (summer of 1969) sleeping in the ACHS Gymnasium 8th – 12th grade. We would practice at least twice a day in full pads! Heat? No one worried about heat! Hydration? If you drank water during practice, you were soft!
“I had to play up with the 8th and 9th grade because the recreation department (Donald NeSmith) decided I was too big to play with the boys my own age, despite being very young in my own class/grade.
“Every day the 8th and 9th grade would practice with and/or against each other, it was a REAL BLOODLETTING! You talk about hard practices! WHEW! Push-ups and sit-ups before practice, conditioning drills at the beginning of practice! Tackling drills like eye-opener, Oklahoma, Triangle tackling, head-on tackling, every day! Then we would scrimmage each other! “Between practices and at night, we had to learn to dodge the upperclassmen for fear they would cut our hair or make us do all kinds of horrible things (Look at Mike Lewis’s hair in the photograph).
“One morning in an especially tough practice (scrimmage) with 8th grade vs. 9th grade, it was determined we (the 8th graders) had gotten the best of the 9th grade! Coach Twiggs said we had whipped them good! LOL! After practice, as we (the 8th graders) gathered around Coach Twiggs, the 9th graders gathered around Coach Allen. Coach Twiggs told us we had won the day! In fact, he instructed us to laugh and mock the 9th graders as they went in to get dressed! He said, “laugh at them, point at them! Tell em’ you whipped them!” WE DID!
“Well, when we came out for the afternoon practice, Coach Twiggs gathered us around and gave us a stern warning! He said, “This morning we won the day! In fact, Coach Allen was so mad that in going into the office, he kicked a chair!” Coach Twiggs continued, he said in a very stern voice and stared at us with those penetrating eyes,” we are going to scrimmage again this afternoon! In fact, we are going to have a carbon copy of the practice this morning! We better have the same result!” He said, “If you let the 9th grade beat you this afternoon, I will not be kicking chairs in the office, I will kick some people!” Ole boy! He got my attention! I thought “Man, that was a tough, hard practice this morning, we got to do it again this afternoon, and we got to win!” Well, the 9th graders put it on us pretty good in the afternoon, as they should have! And yes, Coach Twiggs ran us good! I remember how homesick I was! I thought, I could be at the old rec field, playing rec ball, instead I am out here in this environment!
“Well, we survived camp and had a good year. The next year, Coach Twiggs was our principal at the new Appling County Junior High School. This was the first year of integration in Appling County. We went on to have a great true 8th (my actual 8th grade) football, basketball, and track team! In fact, we beat Jesup twice in one year, the first Appling County team to do so!
“I am not going to say good memories but looking back they were funny!”
