Long time coming

Almost 25 years ago, my brother moved to Newberry to teach high school history. To supplement his income as a teacher he started coaching. Football, basketball, golf, whatever. Bob has always enjoyed sports and played a lot of tennis when he was younger, but blew out his knee and that was all over. Newberry has never really been what you'd consider a powerhouse in high school athletics (I should know, I went to school in York, which also has never been a powerhouse). In fact, Newberry has never played for the SC football state championship.

Until tomorrow. After coaching at Newberry on and off for more than two decades, my big brother gets to sit in the press box at his alma mater, the University of South Carolina, and break down plays and help coach his team in their first state championship attempt in school history. I'm frankly so fucking proud of him I can't see straight. For him and the other coaches (I'm not even sure what his title is, but he's an assistant coach in charge of figuring out what the other guy is going to do and then fucking up their plans) who have worked for so many years, for so little results, this is as good as it gets. They've allowed a total of 14 points in their last 4 games, so if they can hold Cheraw to about 14 points tomorrow, they oughta be good.

So tomorrow afternoon my sister and I will be up in the stands at the WB in Columbia, yelling our asses off at a bunch of high school kids that we've never seen before, hoping that BrotherBob can bring it home. He doesn't know I'm going down, so it oughta be a cool surprise.

Tags: Newberry HS Football