Fall Sports are on top of us

Readers might remember the song from back in the late 1940s which declared “the weather outside is frightful…” After that line and other comments the song got to the heart of the matter with its title, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

Here it is late July 2016 and the weather outside is still frightful. The frightful comment doesn’t come from the fact it is cold outside. Rather it comes from exactly the opposite – it is summer and what a summer we have experienced.

Sports activity for the populace has been engaged in all during this hot weather and is still going on. This old coach can’t take the hot weather like I have in times past. My heart has reached out to coaches and youngsters who have practiced and played in the hot weather.

We are on top of the Fall Sports Season. That doesn’t mean the summer weather will end and it will certainly become cooler. On the contrary, there are many days of hot weather left over, I can testify that heat has taken it out of the youngsters and their coaches.

Football, softball, cross county, volley ball and Middle School golf are all fall activities. I wish all the schools well in their preparation and into the early part of the season. It is going to be hot (maybe “torture” would be a better description). There will be more comfortable days. Hang in there.

I will close this section by saying I had still rather coach a fall sport than in the damp and cold days of spring sports.

The spring sport season gets comfortable about the time the season comes to an end. It was always thought here that a coach I know was bitter toward football and possibly other fall sports because his season experienced that damp and cold weather for such a long time –just a thought.

Don Patterson: Great gentleman of the game

The Northwest Georgia area lost one of the great personalities of the athletic and academic scene over the past weekend.

To say “Coach Don Patterson” may not ring a bell in many people’s mind today. Just know that if you have coached or participated in sports at any high school in Northwest Georgia, the name will be familiar.

Coach Don Patterson’s story as an athlete and as a coach is one to be admired. No, let me say that Don Patterson is a man that required the admiration in his play, in his coaching, and in his association with his players, his students, his coaching staff, and those on the opposite sideline in competition.

Don Patterson died last Friday at the age of 78. To say his name is to say “Ringgold High School.” To read many coaches records one must search the files under many different locations and different high schools. Not so with Don Patterson. Coach Patterson played his high school sports at Ringgold High.

From there he went to the University of Tennessee where he played for the Vols for four years. When it was time for him to locate in his livelihood pursuit, Coach Patterson came home to Ringgold and there he stayed his entire educational and coaching career. For thirty years ( 1969 through 1998) he was the head football coach. His record will show that he coached nearly every sport at Ringgold either as an assistant or head coach.

Coach Patterson was a great part of my life and to know him was to admire him. His funeral was on Monday at his home church, The Burning Bush Baptist Church. I wanted to go but other commitments prohibited my doing so. Even so, my heart hurts for a man it was so easy to love and admire. It would profit everyone to read his obituary from Heritage Funeral Home on Battlefield Parkway. It tells the story of a man who made his mark in life.

The Calhoun 1952 State Championship Football Team

The second annual Calhoun-Gordon County Sports Hall of Fame Banquet is just days away. The ceremony on that occasion will not only induct seven new members into the Hall, it was determined in the beginning that worthy teams from of the city and county would be recognized. The 2016 banquet chose to recognize the Yellow Jackets 1952 State Championship football team.

At the last meeting of the board only two members of that team had responded to the invitation. It is imperative players notify someone of their intention to be present. Many of the players on that team have passed from this life. Still, there are several still living, notwithstanding many live in faraway places and possibly their location is unknown.

It is here I urge all membes of that team to get in touch with your teammates. Then get in touch with Dewayne Bowen or anyone you know on the Board of Directors. I am going to volunteer Jimmy Prater of Prater Ford as someone you can contact.

For everyone, let me remind you tickets for the banquet are not on sale.