This season’s Herky Blackcat pep squad has sadly become like the 2 guys walking along the road at the end of “Dumb and Dumber.” Things are feeling lonely, downcast, even hopeless. “When are we ever gonna catch a break?”
For Dunklin R-5, the 2023 season just became a new, upbeat-ending cut of the movie, in which the Supermodel bus shows up, calmly picks up the pair, and doesn’t allow any nonsense about it. A break? HHS just caught a whopper.
St. Pius X has self-reported a violation of MSHSAA’s rulebook from Week 5’s game against Herculaneum, in which an SPX athlete who’d already starred in the Junior Varsity game from that Monday appeared in too many quarters of the Varsity tilt accidentally. Hill Valley’s new skipper Frank Ray has been exemplary from start to finish of the entire process, noticing that his team had made a depth-chart error, reporting the playing-time violation to MSHSAA before any opposing team’s coach recognized it, and taking the resulting Forfeit Loss (“Herky 13, SPX 0”) without complaint. In fact, if SPX didn’t report, there’s a chance no one would have.
We hope that Herky and St. Pius administrators aren’t cringing that this post was even made on Mississippi Magazine. Schools are understandably not buoyant about Forfeits, Mercy Rules, and the like being acknowledged right out loud, even if former FHS administrator Eric Allen’s departure from local sports means that no one’s going to practically flip-over a scorer’s table and start a brawl over it. In honesty, The Geek wouldn’t bother to post an article about news like this unless there was a BIG, sparkling bright side to the story. As a win followed by an “Indian Giver” loss goes, SPX’s “paper” defeat to Herky works out A-OK for both sides.
First of all, Coach Ray’s call to relinquish the win – based on what most fans would consider a technicality – paints Hill Valley in a positive light even as a handful of observers continue to show skepticism about Ray’s takeover as the coach. TGG has always maintained that there are genuine things a High School program can accomplish other than winning games, and showing a rare turn of sportsmanship – to the point of giving up a Forfeit – is one of them. We don’t suggest that Ray dug-up a minor violation on purpose, to show St. Pius X’s opponents that his “War” and “Battle” slogans are merely a way to motivate his own players. St. Pius Lancers football has not become “Ted Danson, the Anonymous Donor,” but that doesn’t mean we can’t shout-out Ray’s sportsmanlike move to give up a victory. We’ll remember SPX’s show of integrity long after 2023’s finer details fade away.
HHS deserved a gift, any kind of a gift, following a September of pain and roster attrition. The Blackcats’ dire injury woes jilted a surprise Dunklin ‘dog that nearly knocked off a favored Mississippi Conference opponent in August, then went on to produce a shut-out win in Week 2. Knowing that the banged-up Blackcats played 36:00 of decent football and one awful 12:00 against St. Pius, HHS head coach Blane Boss might feel embarrassed to chalk-up a “13-0” win and pencil-in the alternative “2-4” record Herky has now. But it’s also not exactly sporting that Herculaneum is drawn in a C3 District against Park Hills Central, St. Genevieve, Kennett, and the most high-octane Dexter team since the days of QB Earl Wheeler. Getting a “freebie” win evens out some of the bum-luck for Herculaneum, which might now have an outside chance to avoid a brutal match-up in the Q-Finals.
Extra “L”s on Hill Valley’s ledger may bless the Varsity Lancers too. Those who cheered for Crystal City in 2022 (hopefully, that’s everyone reading!) know that when there’s a private school division-killer that lurks in a District bracket, the foremost goal is no longer to attain a #1 seeding necessarily, rather to avoid the division-killer for as long as possible, at least until the team clinches a winning postseason record and has momentum going into Week 12. Lift For Life, the resident division-killer team of St. Pius X’s Class 2, District 2 field, is having a stupendously hard time producing the #1 seed due to competing against other Godzillas in the ’23 regular season. Lift For Life Motorized Scooter Company is presently seeding 4th in the District as of early October, because of rivals like Lutheran St. Charles, Cardinal Ritter, and Quincy (Illinois) showing up on the Charter school’s 9-game slate. C2D2’s favorites expected to lose to so many powerhouse schools this year that the Hawks’ recent loss to Farmington was organized as a “friendly” exhibition contest, which makes TGG unsure about whether to call Lift For Life “3-2” or “3-3” on the campaign. In any case, when considering that Westminster and other L4L victims have been ramming their collective heads up against the wall against hard schedules of their own, the Hawks can’t even expect to move up in seed due to opposing W/L records.
If the Lift For Life Hawks are seeded #4 in the District tourney, then St. Pius X absolutely, positively does NOT want to grab the #1 seed. If the Hawks finish at least 2-1 and earn a #2 or #3 seed in the bracket, then the Varsity Lancers also don’t want to be the other team to have seeded #2 or #3, and thus wind up in a likely District Semifinal game vs a prohibitively stacked lineup in Week 11. It’s looking as though Jefferson could finish 9-0 and earn the District’s highest seed. Meanwhile, a rally from Hermann of C2D2 includes a stunning upset win over Sullivan, an outcome that gives the District’s public schools (and honest private schools) hope that someone can beat a Lift For Life side that belongs in C4 alongside Sullivan and other large-school contenders. The winner of a SPX vs Jefferson rematch would have its chances to win in Week 12 if a #2 seeded Herrmann, and a #3 seeded L4L, beat each other senseless in the semis.
The Geek feels a certain kind of remorse for suggesting to another local coach that SPX’s other 5 opponents-played might wind up looking at their own game film for Lancers’ roster violations. Not that any are likely to have come about, since the coaches at Hill Valley wouldn’t try to gain a tiny and illegal advantage that carried massive risk if they were caught. It’s also not a suggestion made “hoping” that anybody else in the I-55 will score a cheapskate Forfeit-W over the Tri-Cities. Conversely, it isn’t fair to reap the rewards of risk without paying a price.
Remember the Indy car racer Mario Andretti? Mario Andretti, for all of his accomplishments in state-side racing and Formula One, only ever drank the milk after the Indianapolis 500 one time. Andretti also led the Indianapolis 500 more times than anyone could count, sometimes by several laps! But he was always experimenting with faster cars, special engines, and first-try technology that hampered Andretti’s effort to stay in front at a race known as the “500.” The overambitious F1 driver would always have several systems and parts of his car break down before he could finish the race ahead of A.J. Foyt or Al Unser. Once, Andretti’s state-of-the-art “Turbo” engine put him miles ahead of the entire field within 100 laps, then exploded in a hazardous rain of oil, fire, and debris.
If a football coach uses the “Andretti method,” going for as much as possible as quickly as possible, then there’s going to be a blown tire along the way, if not worse. Coach Ray came to Hill Valley like a house-on-fire (or an engine on fire?) this summer, using every scrap of talent and hype available to him regardless of the circumstances. Ray immediately began suiting-up every football player from every team on campus at the Varsity games, mixing Junior Varsity regulars and freshmen alike into Friday night lineups to give St. Pius X an imposing 40-player sideline visual and nothing but fresh players to substitute. On the other extreme, using QB/RB/DB/LB/EDGE/KR/PR James Smith 49:00 out of 48:00 of each big game also gives off a vibe of coaches’ impatience to succeed. Zoom-away the camera lens and think about the Varsity Lancers’ milieu since Ray arrived on scene, and it’s like Pac-Man wanting More, More, More, and RIGHT NOW.
Ray’s “gonzo” coaching tactics have given Hill Valley a spark in 2023. They also caused St. Pius an off-the-field penalty, due to a lineup error that any coach trying to juggle 30 “starters” would probably make along the way. That’s the risk that any team throwing in everything-but-the-kitchen-sink has to take into consideration. If you could instantly boost a brand that way without pitfalls, everybody would try.
Patience is the watch-word for any MSHSAA team stuck in a rigged District. It especially goes for St. Pius X coaches, who may think that they’re on some kind of “time limit” for success due to Smith’s graduation next May. It’s true that the success of Lancer football has always gone up-and-down with starting quarterbacks, but Ray’s heavy dose of power-football changes that.
We can imagine SPX winning with a wide-open game plan in 2024. But given that only 2 other players will graduate along with Smith, it’s even easier to imagine St. Pius as Jefferson County’s new “Monster Truck” by next season, simply steam-rolling opponents with numerous 100-yard backs and high motor defense. It’s possible to win that way without a nifty passer at all, let alone a star QB.
Bigfoot and Gravedigger won more races when they didn’t blow-out parts going for extra speed. We can foresee the fiery Coach Ray steering Hill Valley’s own behemoth right over the finish line in the 2020s…but only if St. Pius stops trying to lap the field, and win a decade’s worth of championships in a single autumn.