I vowed if a Fort Mill football team ever made it, I’d be there. But who foresaw this?
Editors note: John Marks is a Fort Mill resident, a graduate of Fort Mill High School, and played football at Furman University.
Two decades ago I made a vow. If a high school team in Fort Mill ever played for a state championship, I’d be there. I’d drop anything, wherever life had me, to be part of history.
I didn’t expect life would have me here. On Friday night, Catawba Ridge plays for a spot in the state final.
Catawba Ridge that didn’t exist in 2000, opened just last year off a bypass that didn’t exist either. They’ll play AC Flora, a then-region opponent that my high school teams outscored 94-12 in two years when Fort Mill was the only high school in town.
Evidently AC Flora is good now.
I never foresaw 2020. There’s a global pandemic. At one point we thought the world ran out of toilet paper. We’ve had multiple continents catch fire.
The president is Donald Trump. Two decades ago we wouldn’t have known him from The Apprentice. Wouldn’t have known how to Google him. I probably would’ve enlisted America Online, or something.
There were state champions in town back in 2000, just not in football. The only state titles in my house growing up were won with a euphonium. Fort Mill bands didn’t compete this year, given the pandemic. Yes, bands.
Catawba Ridge is the third high school in town. Nation Ford opened seven years after I graduated Fort Mill. We have actual football rivalries in town now. I don’t choose sides. I finished Fort Mill in 2000.
A decade later the same home would’ve been zoned into Nation Ford. Now two more decades later, it’s Catawba Ridge. Yet those schools have just three total upper state appearances. Fort Mill had two before my dad graduated. Nation Ford went in 2015.
We haven’t won one yet.
I’d like to say I’ve been to a Catawba Ridge game this season. But most public gatherings have been friends and family affairs this year. The governor shut schools down on my birthday. They mostly reopened this fall. Church went online. Work went virtual. For a few months the only ventures outside the neighborhood were once weekly trips to Walmart for groceries.
Yes, Fort Mill has a Walmart grocery store.
We have to feed all these people somehow. Take everybody who lived in town two decades ago, then triple it. The woods where the road turned hard left on our elementary school bus route? I live there. More people than went to high school with me now live there, in cul-de-sac subdivisions that go for miles. The pool where Mr. Kimbrell let us neighborhood kids swim? His place is its own neighborhood now.
The year I graduated, Fort Mill moved from 3A to 4A football. Now Catawba Ridge is 4A. Fort Mill and Nation Ford are 5A, which didn’t exist back then. Even little old Indian Land is a 4A school. And they aren’t little old anything anymore.
Our hometown changed, and so did the game.
Our headfirst-veer, option-style offense gave way to the spread, wildcat sets, air raids and others. Huddles gave way to play call pictures on poster boards. Like giant emojis screenshot across the sidelines. A spilled bag of Scrabble tiles would’ve made more sense to me in 2000.
As an old hand-in-the-dirt guy, it’s tough. Quarterbacks now are a protected species. You can hit them but only on the bottom front left jersey number hem, and seven full seconds before they release the ball. You have to use that extra time on a written apology to the offensive coordinator. Receivers, helmeted and in full pads, are somehow defenseless. Blindside blocks are illegal. You can’t breathe on an offensive player downfield, and that’s before the pandemic hit.
I kid. Mostly.
It’s been two decades making the game safer, so people like me can play our whole lives, and then enjoy it all these years later. Kids today play a smart, quick, athletic brand of football. Even if some teams haven’t taken a three point stance since that English essay assignment freshman year.
I’d tell you who wins Friday night, but we aren’t there yet. The future is funny that way.
I’ll be home dodging incoming Amazon deliveries (it’s a company) and stacking leftover turkey sandwiches with a beautiful wife and four kids (it’s company, and a crowd). I’ll keep refreshing The Herald’s website (it’s a thing now) for scores. I’ll check Facebook feeds (it’s not just for college kids anymore) of friends with kids on the team.
And maybe, just maybe, by Saturday morning I’ll have to figure out how in the world to get to a college I’d never heard of next week in a raging world health crisis, to watch a team newer than three quarters of what’s in my sock and underwear drawer play a game that may not have enough tickets for me. All because I once promised my long ago self I would.
And, if I’m honest, because it would still mean that much to the both of us.
Editor’s note: To read about tonight’s game results, return to heraldonline.com
This story was originally published November 27, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
