Return of The Gladiators

Every Saturday after a game, the seniors would meet at the football field to work out the kinks sustained during the previous nights game. Normally the field is locked, but we had a key. The day after the Hendersonville game, Ken Warrington still had the affects of a head ache he got dishing out a pounding during the game (offense and defense) and the rest of us were probably a little more sore than usual. The field also seemed a little more worse for the wear. There were a lot more divots than usual. We all talked about how disappointed we were in the game, and about how we should have won, but everyone had a higher step than normal. They  say there is no such thing as a "moral" victory, but this was one. In fact, it carried through the rest of the season.

After the work out, we crashed a picnic being held at the park (a Spartanburg Textile company had rented the park for a family outing) and feasted on fried chicken, hamburgers and hot dogs.

We had generally gotten good press after the Hendersonville game - enough that an embarrassed Hendersonville coach, Joe Hunt, implied he'd be hood-winked. Tryon's next foe was to be Asheville's TC Roberson - and the Rams were not going to be surprised. "These next two weeks are going to decide where we will finish in the conference," Coach Norris Jones said. Roberson plays Hendersonville two weeks from now. "But we can't by any means look past Tryon. They have a very good fundamental club. Tryon will hit harder than any club we have faced and this Ken Warrington (Tryon fullback) is a good runner. We can't look at Hendersonville now because this Friday's game will be the most important we have played this year."

Never-the-less, the Asheville paper still didn't have confidence in the Tigers, "Roberson Over Tryon - If Tryon hadn't made such a big deal of the Hendersonville game, Roberson might have been tempted to look past it to its game with the Bearcats next week. But Coach Norris Jones in his typical rhetoric said, "Tryon has a real fine football team." He also said, "If we don't beat Tryon we might as well forget about any conference championships. We recognize how good Tryon is and we will be ready."

A defensive surprise was in the works for the Rams. Tryon had been working on a 4-4-3 defense after one of the seniors had seen a show describing how it worked. The coaching staff reluctantly agreed to let the team try the defense "conditionally" (I later learned this was an example of situational leadership by coach Neal). This proved to be vital to the teams dominance the rest of the year.

Game day at Roberson was also unusual. Because of a JV football game that week, the Tigers could only dress out 16 players for the game. Roberson fans shouted out, "Where's the rest of the team? Were they scared to come?" However, Tryon had the last laugh, beating the Rams 12-0.

Some newspaper comments:

• Tryon used a bruising ground game, led by the running of 170-pound senior fullback Ken Warrington to whip the Rams.
• Tryon continued to shine behind the running of fullback Ken Warrington and the defensive play of end Nathan Shields.
• With Tryon beating TC Roberson last Friday night by 12-0, one can't help but wonder if this Tryon club isn't perhaps a little stronger than anticipated. And all this hullabaloo about Tryon's "tiny Tigers" is a bunch of phooey. The Tigers are a big football team and they like to hit. In fullback Ken Warrington they have a blue chip player. Tryon moved up to #7 in the polls.

You can see all the articles and pictures of the game by clicking here.