A football season with someone other than Tom Turner calling the plays at Appalachia is an idea that takes some getting used to.
But a football season entirely without Tom Turner? There's just no getting used to that.
Turner, who led Appalachia to five Group A state championships, died unexpectedly in his sleep at his home early Wednesday morning.
"I know what an icon Tom is in Southwest Virginia. I can only imagine how they feel in Appalachia today," said J.I. Burton coach Jimbo Adams.
Throughout the region and across the commonwealth, friends and coaching colleagues mourned the loss of the Lonesome Pine District's homegrown gridiron genius.
This past October, Gate City coach Nick Colobro was inducted into the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame with Turner.
Wednesday's bad news was difficult to process for Colobro.
"When I got the phone call this morning, I was glad I was sitting down. I had no idea he was this sick," said Colobro, who was Turner's teammate at Virginia Tech. "What a character. Golly Ned! What a legacy he and his staff and those kids and community got to share."
None of Turner's friends and colleagues seemed aware of the grave condition of his health. Most, in fact, believed he had taken a slight turn for the better since announcing his early retirement in March.
For Turner to successfully conceal the extent of his illness seemed perfectly in character. With him, appearances were frequently deceiving. He enjoyed cultivating the outward image of an unsophisticated country boy. But woe to the opposing coach who took that subterfuge at face value.
"He just wanted to lull you to sleep. He was a slick guy," Colobro said. "He was a very intelligent person and he was really, really good at what he did.
"I'm always going to remember how much fun he made it to walk out there on Friday nights and how he made you work so hard the week before to prepare for all his shenanigans."
Even against his toughest and smartest opponents, Turner had an uncanny knack for calling unpredictable plays that worked. In 1993, Turner engineered a victory at Gate City by calling a hook-and -ladder flea flicker out of a two-tight set with a full house backfield.
Who could have seen that coming?
"The thing that most impressed me about Tom was the savvy he had about the game," Powell Valley coach Phil Robbins said. "It wasn't always something you'd read in a textbook. He had a great sense of how the game was flowing and and what should be done and what shouldn't be done.
"Some people would say he was unorthodox. I say he was just savvy. It was just an awareness of the situation and knowing the right time to do something that nobody else would think to do."
Robbins coached with Turner in the VHSCA All-Star Game at Hampton in the summer of 1990. It was his first opportunity to see how Turner operated behind the scenes.
"Without going into detail, I watched him put in a punt return. That play consumed a great amount of time at that particular practice, but it never had to be told again," Robbins said. "With each one of those 11 kids, what he told them was exactly what happened in the game.
"When I saw Tom do that at the All-Star Game, I learned we were dealing with something else."
Over the years, coaches from all over the state worked with Turner in subsequent VHSCA All-Star Games. He left a strong impression on all of them.
"The couple of times I've had the pleasure of coaching in the All-Star Game, when coaches found out where I was from, they'd always ask me how Tom was doing," said Adams, who returns to Hampton this summer.
"When we were struggling up here, he was one of the people who encouraged me and gave me advice on running the program. Except for one week in the year, he never failed to come through with anything I asked of him.
"He'll be sorely missed," Adams added. "He meant a lot to all of us."
Mike Smith, executive director of the VHSCA, was helping to distribute the sad news to Turner's colleagues across the state. As of Wednesday afternoon he was still trying to reach Kurt Newsome, a longtime Turner pal now working under Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech.
"This saddens me. What's very ironic is that Tom played in the very first All-Star Game we ever had in 1970. Then he coached in five or six ... maybe more than that," Smith said. "He may be the only guy I know who both played in it and coached his own son in it."
Travis Turner played four years at quarterback under his father at Appalachia and coached with him during the past three seasons.
"It was an honor and a pleasure to play for him. I know a lot of other Appalachia boys feel the same way," said the younger Turner, whose fondest memory among many was a moment shared with his father after beating Middlesex 72-7 for the 1994 state title - the first of three for the son.
"I think every time the Riggs Stadium lights come on and Mr. Kibler says it's football time in Appalachia, everybody is going to have my dad in their minds."
According to Appalachia principal George Barton, Turner was a coach who always had the players on his mind.
"He was more than a teacher and a coach. He was a father figure to a number of his players. He always had time for their personal problems," Barton said.
"Tom talked to me many times about former players, even as far back as 1980. He could tell you every player that had ever played for him. He could tell you what they were doing today, and if they had children, and where they worked."
Bobby Sanders, who pulled two separate stints as an assistant coach under Turner, was sky high on Tuesday night after getting hired as Lee High's new coach.
Wednesday morning, he felt like a rug had been pulled out from under him.
The one consolation, he said, is that he knows what he learned from Turner will travel with him to Ben Hur.
"The biggest thing I learned from Tom was the way he treated people. He treated everybody right," Sanders said.
"It didn't matter who you were or where you were from. You didn't have to be the star player on the team to get his attention. He always said that coaching was about helping to raise young'uns."