Friday night was one of the best professional experiences of my career. I have been fortunate enough to be a part of winning a state championship, an SEC championship, two wins over UGA at the World’s Largest Cocktail Party, an Orange Bowl win, and two wins at Centennial over ranked opponents, Chattahoochee in 2007 and Walton last year. However, Friday night’s win was good as or better than any of those previous experiences.
Friday night we played Roswell who we consider our biggest rival. We are the other Roswell high school, and most of our kids played in the Roswell pound ball league when they were younger. However, I would imagine if you asked Roswell people their thoughts about us, they would put us well down their list of “rivals,” and to be honest, they would be 100% justified in thinking that way. It is hard for a team to consider an opponent a rival when you beat them every year. I can speak from experience. At Florida, we thought of Tennessee and Florida State as much bigger rivals than UGA. We expected to beat UGA every year, and we did and have done for most of the last 20 years. UT and FSU were different – each team expected to win and those games were much more heated and tense than UGA.
As a coaching staff and a school, we knew we wouldn’t be taken seriously by Roswell and their supporters until we found a way to beat them. Our senior class had lost to Roswell’s senior class every year, from 6th grade until this year, and the losses weren’t close – they were by 20-30 points. We don’t beat Roswell. Our fans know it and don’t really expect us to. To be honest, I’m not sure how many of our coaches and players truly thought we could win the game. However, we knew that if we played well we would have a legitimate shot at beating them, and our kids played their hearts out, coming from behind twice in the game, driving the ball 80 yards in the 4th quarter to score the go ahead touchdown, and then shutting Roswell down when they attempted their own come from behind drive. When the final horn sounded, and we won, it was a surreal moment. The looks on the seniors faces was priceless. We push our kids extremely hard, and for them to put in the time and work and see the result was awesome. After getting the Gatorade shower, I held my 3 year old son in my arms and he said, “The boys sure are happy daddy!” After he said that I stood back and watched the celebration for a minute or so – it was a great sight to behold.
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