Sports Shorts: Ridgeland to host cheer camp this Saturday
The 8th Annual Ridgeland High School cheer camp will be held on Saturday, March 23 from 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Ridgeland High School gym. The cost is $20 per camper and the camp is open to current first through seventh graders.
For more information, contact Abby Manus at abbymanus@walkerschools.org. through Friday, and from 9:30-11:30 a.m. on Saturdays. They will be open for ages 6-18 and swimmers must be able to complete 25 yards of swimming without stopping.
Different swimming strokes will be practiced on each day of the clinic. The cost is free for GWSA members and $60 for non-GWSA members. The clinics will be staffed by GWSA and Catoosa Great White Sharks coaches Phil Donihe, Elizabeth Kirk and Susanna Grundstein.
For more information, check out the Great White Shark Aquatics on Facebook or contact Donihe at (706) 618-7966 or at CoachPhil17@ yahoo.com.
As part of a senior project, Ridgeland softball player Grayson James is looking to host an eight-team softball tournament on April 25-28 to benefit a local family. Entry fee is $125 for two pool games and a single elimination bracket. All money raised will go to assist the family.
For more information, contact James at (423) 664-2008 or Greg James at (423) 3099567.
The 8th Annual Trojan Run 5K event will be held on Saturday, May 4 through historic downtown Chickamauga. Race day registration and packet pickup will begin at 6:30 a.m. and the chip timed race will start at 8 a.m.
Registration fee is $25 before April 26 and $30 on the day of the race. Registration can also be done online at active.com. For more information, contact Nathan Burns at (423) 618-8269 or nathan. burns@glschools.org. Proceeds will go to benefit the Gordon Lee High School cross country and track and field teams.
There are countless stories of the powerhouse football program that old Rossville High School became in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The Bulldogs won state football titles in 1954 and shared a title in 1955 and were a state contender for many years before finally winning it all again in 1962. Rossville had many players who went on to play in college, earn All-State status, win state awards and even pick up All-American honors.
But perhaps not as wellknown today was the Rossville baseball program, most specifically the 1959 team, who captured the state title that season in the state’s largest classification at the time (Class AA).
This past Friday, Ridgeland High School celebrated the achievements of that team by giving the players or family members state championship rings to commemorate the 60th anniversary of their title run.
“It’s a bunch of special guys that did a lot of special things and we wanted to honor them the right way,” Ridgeland head coach Scott Harden said. “Back then, they got a (state championship) trophy, but they didn’t get rings or anything like that. Just to see the smiles on their faces when they got their rings today made it all worth it.”
The 1959 Bulldogs, coached by Rossville alum Toppy Vann (Class of 1953), consisted of just 11 players and two managers. Rossville went 9-3 in the regular season and faced West Rome in the region playoffs. There they beat the Chieftains twice by scores of 4-3 and 8-0 to earn a spot in the state Final Four in Thomaston.
After Ken Cordell — the only pitcher on the Bulldogs’ roster — beat Thomasville, 4-0, Rossville came back later that same day and downed College Park, 4-1, in the state finals. The Bulldogs likely changed the course of sports history that day as well as College Park’s pitcher was a highly-thought-of Major League prospect named Bill Curry. Curry instead opted for football, signed with Georgia Tech and eventually became a Super Bowl champion with the Green Bay Packers. He later was SEC Coach of the Year at Alabama.
The rest of the 1959 Bulldogs included first basemen Bill Au and Jerry Ritchey, second baseman Wink Baker, shortstop Ronnie James, third baseman Larry Crawford, left fielder Clayton Eldridge, center fielder and team captain E.L. Eblen, right fielders Benny Sizemore and Leroy Stevenson and catcher Floyd Shadrick, while twin brothers Ron and Rod Veazey served as team managers.
“I’d say at least half these guys have been a big part of my life and some of the main reasons why I’m here doing what I’m doing now,” Harden continued. “Guys like Wink Baker and Larry Crawford, they’ve been part of my life, personally, for a long time and these men have also been pillars of our community for a long time. Hopefully, we’ll have these guys around for even longer.”
“It’s hard to believe that we’re here at 78 years old, but we did have a great team,” Shadrick recalled. “We didn’t have many players, but we had a great pitcher and he pitched both of those games in one day for us to win the state championship. I remember getting back to Rossville High School and school had already let out for the day, so no one even knew that we had won the state championship. We didn’t even have any parents there. It was just the players and the coach.
“A lot of us played together back in the days of knothole ball and through Little League. Some of us have been together for all of those years. It’s just an honor for us to be here on Ridgeland’s field and to feel this excitement that Ridgeland has created.”
Vann was just in his midtwenties when he coached the Bulldogs that season, but knew all about the players on his team after coaching most of them as youngsters.
“They were really handpicked to be on the high school team,” he said. “We really had some outstanding players, but we were a very good defensive team. All we needed to do was generate two or three runs and we could win ball games and we did win ball games like that. At every position we could field the ball and even our pitcher was a good fielder. We were just a really solid team.”
Vann said the bonds that team created that season and the years that preceded it have never weakened.
“The good thing about it is, as time goes on, we’ve stayed in touch,” he added. “I talk to all of these guys at least once per year and we’ve done it that way for 60 years now. That’s the thing I’m most proud of. We can still get together and do functions like this. We just appreciate what Ridgeland has done for us.”
Harden said seeing the 1959 Bulldogs reminds him of his own playing career when he was a part of the Panthers’ Elite Eight team in 1999.
“The guys on that team still get together with our families and kids and see each other,” he said. “We talk about being a family here at Ridgeland and these guys from Rossville prove that. It shows that no matter how far apart you may live, they are only a phone call away. They’ve all told some great stories about how it was back then. Every one of them are still close and still tight with each other and I think it says a lot about what they did and being a team because it really is about being a family.”