Nelsonville-York (7-1) 14; Athens (7-1) 13

[King of Kings]

O & B, I did not put Athens down for losing. I just stated that Athens should be worried about competing with Logan instead of NY. Several on here have stated about the culture is much different there and the move to the TVC for them proved it. We can't compete against schools our size so let's go play schools that we are 2 or 3 divisions bigger than and beat on our chest loudly when we win. I bet O & B when Athens starts to roll out 70 and 80 kids on the football team you will change your tune and they will roll that many out because they have the potential to. When kids realize they are not playing Logan and Ironton and playing Meigs and Wellston and can compete they will come out. Bulldog 93 talked about 40 kids on the sidelines for Athens. I would bet that none of those kids are freshmen and the rest of the TVC dress freshmen on Friday nights. You cannot measure culture thats why the state has divisions. A D2 school has many more kids to choose from than a D4 or D5 regardless of culture. It is all about potential kids that can play for your school nothing else.

[93Bulldog]

lol ... Dude, your kind of on the right track there .... I prefer to say 'Liberal' culture though, it describes more than just your theory of alt. school kids ...

Look, its simple math ... Last Friday Dave Boston jr. looked down his sideline and saw 55 kids to choose from to put in the game ... Adams saw 43. Hence, where is the advantage? If someone walked in fron out-of-town and saw that game, im almost positive they would have thought NY was the D-II school and Athens the smaller.

Sure Athens has 600+ boys ... but only 44 played football ... there are no so called 'others' to choose from, I don't know why folks can't understand that ... I argued the same point with Ryan two years ago and its taken me about all this time to fully understand the circumstances.

[Orange and Brown]

O & B, I did not put Athens down for losing. I just stated that Athens should be worried about competing with Logan instead of NY. Several on here have stated about the culture is much different there and the move to the TVC for them proved it. We can't compete against schools our size so let's go play schools that we are 2 or 3 divisions bigger than and beat on our chest loudly when we win. I bet O & B when Athens starts to roll out 70 and 80 kids on the football team you will change your tune and they will roll that many out because they have the potential to. When kids realize they are not playing Logan and Ironton and playing Meigs and Wellston and can compete they will come out. Bulldog 93 talked about 40 kids on the sidelines for Athens. I would bet that none of those kids are freshmen and the rest of the TVC dress freshmen on Friday nights. You cannot measure culture thats why the state has divisions. A D2 school has many more kids to choose from than a D4 or D5 regardless of culture. It is all about potential kids that can play for your school nothing else.

Athens will never roll out 70 to 80 kids for football! Soccer is king of the Fall sports at Athens and that will not change!! Athens will shrink down to a mid size D-3 school over time. I have a nephew on that team and if he wants to thump his chest over beating a D-3,4,5, or 6 school I say have at it!! The kids just want to play football.
Potential gets you nothing!!!!! I don't care if you have the potential to dress 100 kids if you only have 40 to 45 that do dress then potential gets you notta!!!! Some of the best athletes in the school play soccer and will continue to play soccer because they would rather play soccer than football. At Logan the soccer team isn't that great and the football team is!! Why? Because the best athletes would rather play football than soccer. Logans soccer team gets there butts handed to them by smaller schools all the time, I don't hear any one getting on them about that.

As a matter of fact you haven't complained at all over the last 18 years or so that NY has been beating Athens. Now that they are starting to be successful you want to find a way to drag them down. Why not be happy that they are learning to win again and that there kids are buying into the program?? Why not just be hopeful that AHS will get to the point where they can compete against schools there size??
Nelsonville-York didn't earn that win, They won because Athens was Really bad!!
Any one who is smaller than Athens only wins because Athens is bad. (That sums up what your saying, right?)

There are D-2 schools all over the state who are in leagues with D-3, 4, 5 teams. They lose to those teams. It happens every week! Starting next year Athens will have 5 non-league games and they have Warren and Parkersburg South on there schedule. I know they kept Federal Hocking, but that leaves 2 more games to fill so we will see if they schedule bigger schools.

Lets all just be happy that Athens is getting there program going again!!!!!

[93Bulldog]

Nobody is more tickled than I about Athens. (well, there are probably about 100 or so folks that share the same feelings at least.) I am just simply attempting to explain the dynamics that surrounds Athens High School and its football program ... It can't really be explained I guess, Ive tried and tried ... Like I said before, I agreed with the notion that Athens 'should' have more football players ... but ive been making that argument since I was 16 years old ... My junior year we set the mark with an 0-10 record, the only non-wining season in the past 20 or 30 years ... My senior year we didn't win a game until week 19! That was 18 losses in a row we had to endure ... All the while, our soccer program had 70+ kids (football was around 35 or so, with freshmen.) ... they won league titles, sectional titles and even district titles ... and this kind of cycle keeps repeating itself year after year with the occasional anomaly (2002, 2003, 1989, 1990).

I mean, what you see this year is about as good as anyone has seen ever at Athens in terms of intrest, numbers, expectations ... You name it .... this year has been the pinnacle of Athens Bulldogs football IMO ... Im sure there were other time frames dating back to the 60's and what not, but I was around in 1989, 1990, 2002 and 2003 and what sets this year apart is the solidarity of the entire program from top to bottom. (Which Ryan Adams and his coaching staff and the players deserve the utmost respect and tons of credit for building) ... Those other teams had a do-or-die mentatility or 'all the eggs in one basket' approach to the season ... Gasser planned on leaving after the '90 season and everyone knew it .. he played his stars from start to finish and it left the program in shambles (1-18 over the next two years after the playoff game versus Desales) ... This year it seems all about the program and team, you see young guys playing everywhere, JV has been solid, the middle school kids look good and our youth football has just been unbelievable considering I had to play freakin flag football growing up. (Athens rec dept had the bright idea of doing away with contact football and its taken years to rebuild.) ... The Gregory teams, same as the early 90's, Champlain made a run and then left when Hewitt and Gregory graduated ... once again, the program suffered and it was back to the 'soccer glory days at AHS ...

Im sorry but Athens being D-II has absolutly nothing to do with its wins this year and has no saying into whether or not Athens should or should not win against the smaller Southeastern Ohio schools ... Everyone keeps saying you have 600 boys to choose from ... That is 100% false ... Adams has done almost everything a person can do to bring out more players ... intrest is at all-time high, there are expectations and winning - but they still had 44 players to start the season .. not 55 or 60 or even 50 ... 44.

I guess we could force the 140 lb drama club student to play football, or ban soccer, or force all the kids who just don't like sports to play ... but that's not gonna happen .... Look, sports just are not as cool at Athens as they are at the small schools in the region ... You don't go to a Parade of the Hills and see 30 kids wearing football jerseys like you do in Nelsonville ... You don't see the entire town gathered at a Glouster Stadium on a Friday night at Athens ...

The day Athens has 60 football players on its roster is the day I will give in to the basis of a bigger school argument ... until then, NY, Meigs, VC, Alex, Athens and Wellston are about as even playing field as a league can get in terms of football ... why Athens is doing so well this year? Because there actually really good and have lots of talent ... All the other 'down' years - NY, Meigs, Wellston - they all kicked our butt almost every time ... why? Because our football program is on equal ground as all of them ... No complicated math or Division has anything to do with it, we're simply all small Southeastern Ohio schools with similar backrounds, similar heritages, etc...etc... The 'football' players are all about the same; we may have 150 or more kids that weigh 160 lbs or less - but have an IQ's through the roof - or can kick the heck out of a soccer ball - but football players = we've got what everyone else has, about 45 players to send out onto the gridiron every Friday night.

[koondoger]

lol ... Dude, your kind of on the right track there .... I prefer to say 'Liberal' culture though, it describes more than just your theory of alt. school kids ...

Look, its simple math ... Last Friday Dave Boston jr. looked down his sideline and saw 55 kids to choose from to put in the game ... Adams saw 43. Hence, where is the advantage? If someone walked in fron out-of-town and saw that game, im almost positive they would have thought NY was the D-II school and Athens the smaller.

Sure Athens has 600+ boys ... but only 44 played football ... there are no so called 'others' to choose from, I don't know why folks can't understand that ... I argued the same point with Ryan two years ago and its taken me about all this time to fully understand the circumstances.

I remember one year going and watching Fed Hock in basketball against Wellston. Fed Hock had 20 players dress for varsity, and Wellston had only 9. It was a shame. Fed Hock should have been D1 in basketball that year, and Wellston should have been D4 cause they should go on number of boys on the team and not how many boys are in the school. Now doesn't that sound silly? Yes it does, and the same is true for the argument in football.

Another great point their K of K in that Athens has 20 some freshmen on the freshman team. So that puts your number up in the 60's which would probably rival Logans numbers. So Let's move Logan down to D5 along with Athens too so every thing is even. I wonder how many players Jackson has? Ironton probably only has about 40, so maybe Athens should schedule them so they can play a similar size team? No matter how you cut it, Athens has more talent on the field this year than any team they have played, or will play. As a D2 team playing smaller division teams they should. They ran 3 or 4 TB's on and off the field while coach Boston had to rely on just the one. And that is just one position. I am starting to wonder if this coach is as wonderful as people are makeing him out to be. I mean, he loses to a D5 team that he clearly has better players than, or at least more good players than, and all I am reading is he "throws games away" and he makes excuses for not being able to get kids out. Hmmmm. Oh and I am sure Wahama has mid 40's 9-12 so I guess that is a good team to keep on the schedule. You know with the same number of availbable players and all.

[Green Beagle]

Koondogger. Thats a pretty good post. Ny dresses I think 15 freshman. So if Ny doenst dress their freshman as Athens does not. He would be looking down the sidelines at around 40 kids or so. And he would loose those freshman that played against athens. The Punter was just a freshman, and there are a couple on the kickoff team and the recieving team. Not to mention 5 sophmores starting against a senior dominated football team. And also a much larger football team across the front line. I still think its great for Athens to be in the TVC. This will be nice for any of the smaller teams in the league that may knock them off and get the first level points. Culture, College, Kids not tuff, I dont care how you put it I think its nice having a D2 school in the league for the points, but only when you can beat them.

[NYBuckeye96]

Athens size may or may not come into play in sports like football and basketball, but it does come into play in many of the other sports, like golf, cross country, and track and field.

Example - Athens girls won the TVC Cross Country Championship. However, the only other teams with enough runners to even qualify for a team score were Vinton County and Meigs. Is it a coincidence that the only three schools who qualified for a team score are the three schools with the most students? I don't think so. Size of school definately has an impact in some sports at least.

The TVC fields teams in most of the sports Athens has (minus soccer and tennis), but when you have smaller schools, there aren't enough kids to go around to have a strong roster in all of the sports.

I don't think there is any question that Athens will win the all-sport trophy every year in the TVC. However, that trophy was never really a big deal in the TVC, at least not like it is in the SEOAL. I can't even tell you who has won it in previous years, except for last year.

I think the TVC schools knew this going in and simply didn't care that Athens would dominate a lot of the non-revenue generating sports. The TVC has never really made a big deal about alot of the non-revenue generating sports. I can't even find out the final overall standings in the league for golf and volleyball. That information is nowhere to be found. I know Athens won golf and Athens and Alex were co-champs in volleyball, but that is all that has ever been reported. If the TVC doesn't care enough to report this information to newspapers, that tells me that the TVC doesn't place any importance in these sports.

Athens will win the all-sports every year until Warren is voted back in the league and then there will at least be competition for the all-sports trophy. The primary concern of the TVC has always been revenue sports - football and basketball. Wrestling has decent support too.

If you don't believe me.......can any of you tell me who finished second-seventh place in golf? I didn't think so. I can't find that information and I have made an active effort to find it.

[questionmark]

Last time I checked...
Athens - Plays 11
NY - Plays 11
VC - Plays 11
Meigs - Plays 11
Alexander - Plays 11
Wellston - Plays 11

All play the 11 best kids ... no matter how you slice it... 11 is the Key number...

It's not like because Athens is (D2) and VC is (D3) that they can change their entire front lines like you see Ohio State do...it just doesn't work that way. Or, because of their size they can take that 11 out and put in 11 new fresh bodies ... nope, doesn't happen either.

If you are a Team in Southeatern Ohio like ALL the Teams in the TVC and several of the SEOAL teams, you must play kids both ways...

Koondogger- I have to question your thinking on the Runningback issue between (Ath/NY).
I played RB, and I know if it were me, you would have to rip me off the field. You act like just because you use one RB that it is a bad thing. The fact that Athens used 3 different RB's last week could be because we don't have a solid number like Arnold is, and the fact that while we want to be successful with all of the RB's, we also must keep building toward the future as one RB was a Senior, one a Junior and one a Sophomore.

Also, Koondogger. I don't ever remember hearing Adams making excuses for not getting any kids out for the program or for any loss. Adams is one helluva coach and I can be bias for that because I did play for him back in the day. Yes, Coach Adams Athens team this year was better then Coach Boston's NY Team. But, that is the beauty of Football and why you still have to play the game. Neither Coach, for as good as they are can control turnovers or injuries in a game, they simply just have to try and adapt their gameplans as they happen. Your logic and thinking just seems a little off. For the sake of arguement, if Athens is a D2 school by 1 guy, and you have Vinton County who is a D3 school because they are one guy less, that Athens should win simply because of Division is rediculous. Athens 40 some boys lost to a good NY team that had 40 some boys.

King of Kings- I don't know where you are from, but Athens and any other school around Southeastern Ohio will never roll out 70-80 kids. It's just not possible unless a sport at that school gets cut and those kids join to join. In which what help can they truly give when they have never played the sport and only have 4 years to learn.

Also one last thing and it deals with the Size (Division) issue...
You can look at all of the schools, and those with the higher numbers all do share one thing that does bring them down give or take about 10 kids and that issue is "Empty Jerseys". You all know, if you played this game, you had friends who were on the team but knew they probably never would contribute on Friday Nights...One can argue that the only advantage of having more kids is that fact you can have more practice bodies...

[Spartan]

Maybe time will remedy this misconceptions of Athens by outsiders. The kids we have playing football and succeeding are the same type of kids that are succeeding every place else in the county.

We love it here in the TVC, and we arent going any place. And I am sure all of the coaches even in the revenue sports want us in the league, why wouldnt they. Fans love to hate us, and our presence in the TVC only helps to illustrate that most of the Alexander fans are the biggest whiners in southeast ohio. Press charges against the Athens players. That was the best one of all time......

[Orestes]

[Orange and Brown]

Point taken!!!!!!


Funny!!!!!

[IMK01]

93 Bulldog: You keep saying over and over that Athens is only 3 to 4 boys over the limit for Division II. That is not true. OHSAA has Athens at 363 boys. The divisional breakdown for Division II is 348-517, Division III is 252-347, so by my count that means Athens is 16 over the count, not 3 or 4. And how do you know already that they will be a Division III school by next count (which is in, what - 2 years)???

I agree with the previous posters that Athens will indeed keep winning the All Sports trophy since they have so many more kids to play all these sports that the Division 4, 5 & 6 schools don't even have. So go ahead and thump your chest on winning that TVC All Sports trophy!!!

I can't even believe that you are whining about how many more boys Nelsonville has on the football field than Athens. Of course they have more - they've had a winning program for a lot of years. A lot of it has to do with the coach and how they pump the boys up to come out for football. That was done by Coach Springer a few years ago at Federal Hocking. FH went from having 22 boys to over 60 in one year. The coach and his staff went above and beyond to get the boys to come out.

[King of Kings]

IMK01 another mystery that creeps into the Athens post is their hidden freshmen. You know the ones that every other team in the TVC count. Athens may have 40 on the sidelines friday night, but they probably have around 62 total including freshmen that don't dress Friday nights. That is pretty close to 70 in the program. It is not out of the realm of possibility for them to have that many in the near future.

[NYBUX]

We win you whine that's the difference................

Our smaller & younger def. linemen beat the dogsnot out of your linemen in the 2nd half...

Yes I said DOGSNOT!!!!!!!!!!

[IMK01]

I was very happy to see a SMALL Division 5 school beat big old Athens. I was getting extremely tired of hearing and reading everybody from Athens so happy about being undefeated, beating all the small schools in the TVC. Until Athens has a winning season for a number of years, beating schools their size, I don't consider them as being a great football team. Sorry, that's just the way I feel.

[diamondD1]

"It is not he who criticizes that is important, nor he who points fingers at those who fall and could have done better. The honor goes to he who fights in the ring and who’s face is covered in sweat, he who moves ahead, makes errors and will make more, because there is no human effort without errors and imperfections." ~ Mahatma K. Gandhi

"He who belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent." ~ King Solomon, Proverbs 11:12

[NYBUX]

Only in Athens would you find Gandhi being quoted on a football thread

[diamondD1]

Only in Athens would you find Gandhi being quoted on a football thread

You can question the toughness of Athens all you want. Perhaps some of it has even been warranted from the past. But one thing I know, these programs (not just football) are only going to continue to get better and better, which means tougher and tougher for our opponents. The fact that we are already drawing criticism and belittling from our neighbors is good news as far as I am concerned. The only thing that has pushed me to respond here to all of this ridicule is the fact that the young men and women from Athens are working very hard, being very successful as a result of their efforts, and deserve a lot of credit rather than belittling. The kids have no control over what league they are in or who is on their schedule. And the kids, the ones who are out there "with their faces full of sweat", deserve a lot more credit than this.

I don't care if Gandhi said it or Bill Belichick said it, truth is truth.

[NYBUX]

I too got caught up in this crap.
I have read over and over about "shaky" calls by the officials, fumbled ball no touchdown, "almost" missed extra point, we didn't play good blah blah blah our boys work just as hard and played up to and beyond in that game ......

I will say that Athens ground crew should be commended for a field that was in excellent shape for a football game. Good Job!!!!!!

[Pickbuck86]

Orestes, YOU are my favorite!!! Where do you come up with these? LOL