If I remember correctly, 1980 I was in 5th grade and Water Valley went 11-man. Very rough year, and many after. I remember being in 5th grade. Was at Diddle Young Field every Friday night from Kindergarten thru 5th grade. Watch my high school idols a bit, then go hit the practice field to play with the other young ones, was back and forth all night. Play some, go watch the big kids, and back to playing. I looked so forward to playing six man all those years and we got too big the year before I hit sixth grade. Remember those days? When sixth thru eighth was junior high? I also watch the kiddos play toss and catch today. Not back then, it was tackle only back then with lots of skinned elbows and bloody noses. Wow!! This post brought back some memories. Good ones! I did play in an 8th grade 11-man battle in 1983 against Sands. Honestly don't remember who won. It could have went either way, I remember it being close and very physical. 8th grade I know, but I'm here to tell you, it was physical. I was QB and tossed it to our tailback on a quick pitch. Corner read it all the way, had to be running at least 40mph (about like a mustang) and absolutely ran thru the poor kid with the ball. He went down and didn't move. There was no doubt he was injured. Yep, out cold, only lasted a few seconds. When he came around, the coach says James, are you ok. The response was hillarious. He was obviously scared, and says I dont like elephants, then he kept saying I'm full, I'm not hungry, I said I don't want any. Big time concuscion. We had a blast all the way back to WV, asking all kinds of questions with answers that had no bearing to the question. We were kids, we didn't know any better. But it made memories and he was just fine a couple days later when the Headaches stopped.
1980 Sands 39 WV 12
1981 Sands 0 WV 0
1982 Sands 38 WV 0
1983 WV 21 Sands 14
