Brought a tear to my eye....

[Ironlung]

and probably will for anyone who's ever played. This is a good kid and Clintwood is going to miss him horribly. Thanks to LBU for telling me about this....


CLINTWOOD, Va. --
It?s an honor, he says, tugging at the collar of his green football jersey.
It?s an honor to wear it.
It?s an honor to live it.
It?s an honor to play here, he says, slowly turning his head around to take in Ralph Cummins Stadium one last time as a player, eyes filled with tears, unable to talk through a voice breaking with sobs screaming to come out. Yet, at this moment, John Dotson does his best to hold it in.
"This place," he manages to say despite the emotions, "is legendary."
And so too should be Dotson ? some sort of Clintwood football folk-hero legend rivaling the Trail of the Lonesome Pine.
Whether he wants to believe it right now or not.
Whether anybody in Clintwood, some small little dot on the map a little more than an extra-point try from Kentucky, is ready to believe anything right now, they do need to believe this ? what Dotson accomplished in four years at center should resonate among the hollowed-out hills that rim the town.
Sure, it?s going to take a while to get over this one ? a heart-wrenching 26-21 loss to an Eastern Montgomery team that claimed to have more weapons than Kim Jong-Il, then, on Saturday, proved it.
But lost amid the tears of falling short of a Division 1 championship berth is the loss of Dotson. His freshman year, he was thrust into the starting role at center for Clintwood. Saturday?s loss, four years later, marked his last game snapping the ball to a Greenwave quarterback.
A string of 53 straight starts gone with the melting snow on the end of a Shawn Christian game-winning touchdown flick late in the fourth quarter.
So excuse Dotson if, as the Greenwave and Mustangs lined up to shake hands after the game, he could barely walk a few steps without shaking his head and taking a knee on the mud-snow mix that passed for a football field.
His shoulders throbbing as he sobs, head buried in his hands. Teammates stopping to help him up and emotionally carry him through the handshake line.
"You can?t put it into words," he says, still trying not to show the tears. Still trying to hold it back.
"This jersey. This stadium. This community. Everything. Everything."
And Clintwood, when it gets over the loss, should know that Dotson is right. Football is life here. Greenwave coach Rick Mullins, who played for Clintwood back in the day, calls it an honor to coach there even if his hopes of bringing a state title back to the community he, and these players, call home were crushed again.
It left a camouflage-clad ravenous home crowd ? one so diverse that neutral onlookers had a 50/50 chance of getting hit with an errant Blackberry or a set of false teeth ? in stunned silence.
It left Dotson and Trey Meade ? the Wave?s senior quarterback ? searching for words, any words, to put it into perspective.
"It just hurts," Meade says, his eyes just as red as Dotson?s. "You see the whole community here whether it?s 20 degrees or four inches of snow."
He sighs, wipes his nose, rubs a tear from his eye.
"It just doesn?t feel like it should end like this."
But it did. And as the fans slowly filed out, Dotson stood there and watched them leave.
"It hurts, you know," he says. "I can?t give one more snap to Trey here, to look to my right and see [fellow lineman] Travis [Fleming] ?
"It?s the tradition. It?s the love the community shows for you; the feeling you get when you run on the field is second to nothing else on Earth. I love this more than anything."
Finally letting it all out and breaking down into an all-out cry, Dotson picks up his helmet and slowly walks toward the gate.
Everybody he walks past stops him, slaps him on the back, offers up a hug, rubs his cold, wet hair before he, slowly, makes a left and disappears behind the field house.
"I?m going to miss him tremendously," Mullins says.
Not as much as Dotson is going to miss wearing the green.
That honor was all his.

[The_Sage]

That is awesome Lung,, thanks for posting..

[UTVols2]

Good stuff....sadly I remember like it was yesterday the last time I put on the pads. I just wonder if it feels like this for kids in other parts of the country. The whole thing as he mentioned, the honor of the jersey, the school, the community. Just for instance because I know the numbers better in Norton. You have a school of around 200 kids and a City that has roughly 3,000 people in it and on Friday nights you have 2,3,4,5K people in the stands and for the big games of the year you have close to 10,000 people there.

The JJ Kelly/Burton game last year at Burton there were roughly 8,000 people there, or at least those were the ones who paid. Over 40,000 brought in that night. Man I am sad the season is over, gonna be a long 9 months til two-a-days roll back around.

[Ironlung]

Good stuff....sadly I remember like it was yesterday the last time I put on the pads.

LBU and I both played our last year on the 94 Clintwood team. He sent me a text this evening asking if I'd read this and I told him no. When I read it I told him that it made me think of our last game against PV in the playoffs in 94. The happiest times I've ever had in my life were during the falls of 92,93, and 94. I'd do anything to be able to go back and relive those 3 years just one more time. As happy as those 3 years were, that final Saturday was heartbreaking.

btw...if you read this Brad could you give him (LBU) access to this forum and the men's forum? He's 33, a good guy, and has never been a problem to the board. If he wants access to the religion ect. forums he can ask you when he gets here. He said he sent Freddy a few pm's but never heard anything.

[1inStripes]

Same here. Losing to Appy in the playoffs in a game that I still feel like we were the better team, especially if we our best RB would have played more than 4 plays. That day hurt, hurt bad. Going out to eat with a bunch of classmates that night to IHOP, and not watching UT. That was the only good thing that happened that day as Clint Stoerner gave UT a gift. I wanted to beat Appy bad after playing terrible against them the year before when we werent even in the same league as them. I wanted to play Reggie, Quinn and crew that next week at home. I hate remembering that day.

[simple man]

This is what makes high school football interesting. No money, or free college tuition. Just folks playing for pride. Turner was the best I ever saw at getting everything from a kid. If you look at the smaller schools, you have close to 20 % of the entire enrollment (eligible enrollment) on the field for each play. I love to watch them play, but it is hard to see them leave.