No, a cow isn't dying. I am reminiscing about the wonderful 1991 Atlanta Braves season and how it reminds me of our high school football team's current run for the State Championship. The football team, the Peachtree Ridge Lions of Suwanee, the High School that 2 of my boys attend, are heading to the State Championship in Class AAAAA tonight. This was totally unexpected and I am all hyped up over it. I have not been this excited over a sports team since the Braves awesome season in 1991. I realize that the majority of my readers were not yet born in 1991, but insanity was the rule all over metro Atlanta.
It was the Braves worst to first and the city was in a frenzy. There were tomahawks hanging everywhere you went. Everyone was talking about the Braves, even non-baseball fans. I did all sorts of crazy things like buy an overpriced National Pennant winner tee shirt and stay up half the night watching the games. But the stupidest thing I did was head downtown to the Braves Ticker Tape parade.
As is tradition, a team winning the World Series is usually thrown a parade by its city. The Braves lost to the Twins in the World Series, but there was so much pride- the community was really so proud of this team - that it was decided to throw a parade anyway. The sentiment was to let them know that we didn't care that they lost the series! We loved them for all they accomplished.
I decided to show my support so I headed downtown with my then 3-year-old child who really wasn't walking yet and was kind of heavy. I got on Marta and it was packed. It was full of children ditching school. I nearly got trampled when I arrived downtown. I could not move, I could not walk in any direction. I have never been in such a huge crowd in my life- it was scary. Everyone in the entire city turned out. The estimates are that between 500,000-750,000 were at the parade. To this day, MARTA counts the Braves 1991 parade as its heaviest day of ridership. Due to this massive crowd, not many were able to see anything. There was mayhem and mobbing. I had envisioned that I would cheer as the players passed. Ha, well that never happened- all I saw was a urine-stained corner where my face was trapped in the Five Points Station. I was holding onto the the baby, my arms about to break, freaking out. The next day's headline read: "Bedlam reigns on Peachtree as half-million roar for Braves. Parade crowds, 15 deep, surge into street to touch heroes" It was bedlam all right! But we loved them and it was exciting!
I feel the same way I did about the 1991 Braves as I do now about the football team at Peachtree Ridge. I am NOT a big football fan. I don't really understand the game and find myself drifting off whenever I have tried to watch. Last season my sons wanted to go to the games, so I started taking them on Friday nights. I enjoyed the whole pomp and festivities of the game.
You don't want to mess with this guy, Number 76, Cameron Heyward:
Note how much bigger he is than every one else on the field:
This year I started reading the High Schools sports pages. That whole 4 downs thing I thought I always knew, but NO ONE ever explained about the 10 yards! Duh, now I get it! I thought you had 4 downs and then if you didn't get a touchdown you lost the ball. If I can only figure out the punting thing...My sons are complete statistics nuts and know all the teams in the county and pretty much in the whole State of Georgia (and the colleges and the NFL). We attended almost all the games this season, because I enjoy those crappy nachos. Eventually our team lost 3 games to the 3 stronger teams in the 7-AAAAA division: Collins Hill, North Gwinnett and Norcross. We were actually excited and pulling for North Gwinnett, our old High School, also in Suwanee, which was having a record 10-0 season and at one point was ranked number one in the State.
The Lions came in 4th out of 8 teams in 7-AAAAA. They were never even close to being ranked in the top 10. The top 4 teams make the playoffs. The 4th seed always has to play a 1st place team, and they have to play as visitors. This is to bump them off easily and give the rightful top finishers a chance to move up. But predicted by sportswriters and everyone else to lose, they have won 4 straight play-off games.
Tonight they play Roswell High School for the State Championship. This is an amazing accomplishment for a school only 4 years old. I have lived in the same house for the past 13 years. My children have been re-districted to 3 different elementary schools, 2 middle schools and 2 high Schools. It is hard to get attached to any one school when you are never in one long enough. When they rezoned us to Peachtree Ridge, only very few families were switched there from our old school at North Gwinnett, perhaps only 5%-10% of the school. Going to the first PTA meeting was odd, because I didn’t see ONE familiar face, even thought I have lived in the same area for 13 years! I felt like I had been dropped in Kansas. Most of our friends were made through baseball and Cub Scouts while at North Gwinnett. We felt like outsiders. I think one good thing about the Lions run for the championship is it is going to bring a sense of belonging and cohesiveness to this school. The school has gotten tons of publicity this past week, including an article in the Metro section of the AJC about the school.
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2006/12/15/gwxridge1215.html
There have been at least 20 articles this past 2 weeks about the football team, particularly in the Gwinnett Section, since they are the only school left standing:
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2006/12/11/gwxlions1211.html
On Friday, my boys told me the football team paraded through the halls as the school went nuts. You can watch tonight's game at 7:30 on Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB). I'll let you know who wins. My son's are going with their dad. I will watch on TV. After attending last's weeks semi-final in the Georgia Dome, I need to avoid crowds for awhile, but that is a whole other blog entry entitled "Ethel and her neuroses"
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