freeagent
Six-man pro
First ... sorry to those who suddenly lost my score texts on Saturday. My blasted phone had perfect service in Zephyr but went haywire twice enroute home; will need a trip to Sprint this week for a little chat with the service folks.
Wanted to share my comments concerning the Lifegate-Heritage game, a few from a game perspective, but more of a personal nature and "inside baseball" stuff.
The folks at Zephyr were great. Friendly, helpful (from the superintendent on down), good folks. But I kinda expected that, it's a sixman town. But they had people to run the event even though they were running a 47-game, 3-day basketball tournament at their gyms in town. Cripes, I gotta beg for somebody to take the gate or run the concessions stand.
We stayed at the LaQuinta in Brownwood the night before; great people. Had a chance to dine at Underwood's Cafeteria that night. While we're in line, a nice lady asks about our group and I tell her we're from Seguin Lifegate Christian and are in town for the TAPPS Sixman championships at Zephyr. She mentions she teaches at a sixman school -- Oglesby and I ask if she knows Coach Stigler. Of course she does, his classroom is across the hall from hers. Small world. The guys meet that night and one of the assistant coaches from Brownwood HS comes to give a great talk and testimony.
I want to say something about my good friends from Heritage. Six times to state, this was their first loss there. We had always talked about meeting each other in that venue and it really was a dream come true to have the honor of playing them for a state title. And the thing about Heritage, every player, coach and fan was as gracious in defeat as they were in victory. Even got a nice hug from Mrs. Shipman after the game.
Heritage shouldn't have been at Zephyr if you looked at them at the start of the season. Graduated a lot of folks, only two seniors and two juniors. Something tells me they may be back at this big dance in another year.
Besides being district opponents, Lifegate and Heritage started their programs about the same time. Heritage in 2002, Lifegate in 2003 (this was our tenth season). Our first game in 2003 was against Heritage -- they won 32-13.
Kind of a funny thing; there was a little snafu at the start of the title game and the US Flag wasn't raised as planned during the opening introductions. Reminds me of something from that 2003 game. We rented Navarro HS' field, about 10 miles up the road from Lifegate, for our games the first five years of the program. I had all sorts of things set ... the program, knew which key opened the locker rooms, the inside A/C, the equipment room (for the markers/pylons), the press box, had everything "scripted" for introductions, etc. So, we start the show and we're ready for the national anthem. I had forgotten to bring a flag.
So, we start playing the game. Well, wait a minute. I'm one of the old men on the sidelines. There were a bunch of fine young men who played the game yesterday.
Great effort on both sides of the ball by both teams, but it was pretty evident early that Lifegate was going to win this one. When (as the Seguin Gazettte writer put it), "diminuitive senior" Hunter Hewell put a hit on Heritage's Joe Meek that I am still hearing today. you knew our post-game dinner was going to include a big helping of Eagle stew.
Halftime it's 54-14 and Lifegate gets the kick. As we head back to the field for the second half, Coach Rabon realizes he left his Diet Coke in the locker room and heads to get it. I'm a little worried that he might miss what possibly could be a runback for the championship and send one of the ball boys to send him back and they would go get his drink. Brad Akin, one of our assistants, was close to calling a time out BEFORE the kickoff but he made it back in time.
We drove down the field to a second or third and goal from the four yard line with about 7:30 left in the quarter. Tyler Swisher takes the ball, cuts into the middle of the field. I'm standing next to Rabon and he's yelling why didn't he go outside, it's wide open...I turn to him and tell him he's won the state title as Swisher crosses the end zone.
John's coached for 42 years and this is his first state title, and he deserves it. An excellent job of coaching young men, not only in football, but helping them grow in love and service to the Lord.
So, we head home after the game, stop in Austin for dinner and pretty well lose the caravan on the way home. I was supposed to be the lead dog, but when we re-assembled in San Marcos around 7:30, I'm the last dog to pull in the lot.
As we crossed the Hays/Guadalupe County line a few minutes later, we're met by the Guadalupe County Sheriff (well, that happens to me a lot of times, but I digress) and get a 20 mile or so escort to the Lifegate gym where we are met by fans unable to make the trip. Somebody found an old CD of my hits of the 70s and 80s and once it got to Queen's "We are the Champions," well, the musical portion of our celebration ended.
Here's the story from Sunday's Seguin Gazette (the newspaper changed its banner colors from their standard yellow/gold to Navy Blue, one of our school colors for the event): http://seguingazette.com/sports/article ... mode=story
We sure are going to have our work cut out for us to make the trip next year ... unless I can find out Tyler Swisher failed some course and will have to stay here another year, but from what I hear, that's gonna be real difficult, because he's a real smart kid. Defensively, we return 5 of the 6, so we have something to build on.
But that's next year. I want to enjoy this one ... it was 12 years ago that I started pushing the idea of football at Lifegate and it wasn't an easy sell. I kinda feel like a proud papa handing out cigars ...
Wanted to share my comments concerning the Lifegate-Heritage game, a few from a game perspective, but more of a personal nature and "inside baseball" stuff.
The folks at Zephyr were great. Friendly, helpful (from the superintendent on down), good folks. But I kinda expected that, it's a sixman town. But they had people to run the event even though they were running a 47-game, 3-day basketball tournament at their gyms in town. Cripes, I gotta beg for somebody to take the gate or run the concessions stand.
We stayed at the LaQuinta in Brownwood the night before; great people. Had a chance to dine at Underwood's Cafeteria that night. While we're in line, a nice lady asks about our group and I tell her we're from Seguin Lifegate Christian and are in town for the TAPPS Sixman championships at Zephyr. She mentions she teaches at a sixman school -- Oglesby and I ask if she knows Coach Stigler. Of course she does, his classroom is across the hall from hers. Small world. The guys meet that night and one of the assistant coaches from Brownwood HS comes to give a great talk and testimony.
I want to say something about my good friends from Heritage. Six times to state, this was their first loss there. We had always talked about meeting each other in that venue and it really was a dream come true to have the honor of playing them for a state title. And the thing about Heritage, every player, coach and fan was as gracious in defeat as they were in victory. Even got a nice hug from Mrs. Shipman after the game.
Heritage shouldn't have been at Zephyr if you looked at them at the start of the season. Graduated a lot of folks, only two seniors and two juniors. Something tells me they may be back at this big dance in another year.
Besides being district opponents, Lifegate and Heritage started their programs about the same time. Heritage in 2002, Lifegate in 2003 (this was our tenth season). Our first game in 2003 was against Heritage -- they won 32-13.
Kind of a funny thing; there was a little snafu at the start of the title game and the US Flag wasn't raised as planned during the opening introductions. Reminds me of something from that 2003 game. We rented Navarro HS' field, about 10 miles up the road from Lifegate, for our games the first five years of the program. I had all sorts of things set ... the program, knew which key opened the locker rooms, the inside A/C, the equipment room (for the markers/pylons), the press box, had everything "scripted" for introductions, etc. So, we start the show and we're ready for the national anthem. I had forgotten to bring a flag.
So, we start playing the game. Well, wait a minute. I'm one of the old men on the sidelines. There were a bunch of fine young men who played the game yesterday.
Great effort on both sides of the ball by both teams, but it was pretty evident early that Lifegate was going to win this one. When (as the Seguin Gazettte writer put it), "diminuitive senior" Hunter Hewell put a hit on Heritage's Joe Meek that I am still hearing today. you knew our post-game dinner was going to include a big helping of Eagle stew.
Halftime it's 54-14 and Lifegate gets the kick. As we head back to the field for the second half, Coach Rabon realizes he left his Diet Coke in the locker room and heads to get it. I'm a little worried that he might miss what possibly could be a runback for the championship and send one of the ball boys to send him back and they would go get his drink. Brad Akin, one of our assistants, was close to calling a time out BEFORE the kickoff but he made it back in time.
We drove down the field to a second or third and goal from the four yard line with about 7:30 left in the quarter. Tyler Swisher takes the ball, cuts into the middle of the field. I'm standing next to Rabon and he's yelling why didn't he go outside, it's wide open...I turn to him and tell him he's won the state title as Swisher crosses the end zone.
John's coached for 42 years and this is his first state title, and he deserves it. An excellent job of coaching young men, not only in football, but helping them grow in love and service to the Lord.
So, we head home after the game, stop in Austin for dinner and pretty well lose the caravan on the way home. I was supposed to be the lead dog, but when we re-assembled in San Marcos around 7:30, I'm the last dog to pull in the lot.
As we crossed the Hays/Guadalupe County line a few minutes later, we're met by the Guadalupe County Sheriff (well, that happens to me a lot of times, but I digress) and get a 20 mile or so escort to the Lifegate gym where we are met by fans unable to make the trip. Somebody found an old CD of my hits of the 70s and 80s and once it got to Queen's "We are the Champions," well, the musical portion of our celebration ended.
Here's the story from Sunday's Seguin Gazette (the newspaper changed its banner colors from their standard yellow/gold to Navy Blue, one of our school colors for the event): http://seguingazette.com/sports/article ... mode=story
We sure are going to have our work cut out for us to make the trip next year ... unless I can find out Tyler Swisher failed some course and will have to stay here another year, but from what I hear, that's gonna be real difficult, because he's a real smart kid. Defensively, we return 5 of the 6, so we have something to build on.
But that's next year. I want to enjoy this one ... it was 12 years ago that I started pushing the idea of football at Lifegate and it wasn't an easy sell. I kinda feel like a proud papa handing out cigars ...
