They are Tucker
School wins first state football championship
by Brian Egeston
be@brianwrites.com
The Tigers practice in near darkness Tuesday before the championship game. Photos by Brian Egeston/Sports Editor |
The story behind a championship game
Tuesday night at Tucker High School’s practice field, there was screaming. Coaches were demanding that players run back to the huddle. Players were yelling the numbers that haunted them -- 38-0, the Marist blowout and 1963 -- the last time Tucker had a shot at the title.
Three lights, powered by a decrepit generator, illuminated the field for 35 yards. Across town at Marist High School, their opponents were preparing under a well-lit practice facility. But at Tucker, they kept running plays, kept screaming and grunting in the faint darkness.
The Tigers gather at First Baptist Church in Tucker before the game. |
Hours before the game, as the Tigers filled the pews at First Baptist Church in Tucker, pastor Jeff Jones delivered a mini sermon about Joshua and Caleb. The clergyman talked about the brothers, despite facing larger adversaries, choosing to face the wilderness to reach the promise land. “God said be strong and courageous,” Jones told the team. “This is your opportunity, make the most of it.”
The promise land, for Tucker football, had always eluded the 90-year-old school first built as a three-room schoolhouse. While the program amassed 18-region/sub-region championships, the state crown was never worn. Perhaps none more heartbreaking than the semi-final loss last year to Northside Warner Robins after jumping out to a 21-0 half time lead. “That loss will hurt forever,” said Tucker defensive coordinator Brian Lamar. “That was a championship team.”
The Tucker alum is an expert on heartbreak. He watched year after year as his team lost bids for state championships. As an eighth-grader, his undefeated team lost a semifinal game in overtime to Dublin in 1994. The next year, his 11-1 team lost to Cedar Shoals in the first round by a touchdown on the last play of the game. Lamar’s senior year, a 10-1 team that was leading Creekside by one point in the second-round game when a hail Mary pass handed the Tigers yet another playoff loss.
The main characters of the championship drama arrived at the battleground the same way pro athletes and rock stores do, through a gated area protected by security guards and event staff. Minutes before Tucker arrived at the Georgia Dome, Alabama head coach Nick Saban was escorted through the back entrance just in time to see the DeKalb County civil war. It was the first time since 1979 that two schools in DeKalb County faced each other in the championship game.
Locker Room Commotion
A Tiger has his ankle taped in the locker room before the game. |
With game time approaching, Grant Peacock, Tucker’s physical therapist, paced near the locker room, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Go to g-p-b dot org and see if you can find something that says, click here to watch or football game.” Peacock was trying to teach his 86-year-old father in Connecticut how to watch streaming video. If successful, the elder could watch his grandson, Ricky Peacock and Tucker’s kicker, play for a state championship. If not, perhaps TV Land reruns would have to suffice.
The Tucker players, most of them in an NFL locker room for the first time, frolicked around taping cleats while ear buds stuffed their ears. Some stared blank into space, while others added to the evolving medley of various rap songs that filled the locker room. OutKast lyrics echoed from the restroom, while someone else recited T.I.’s rhymes in another quadrant of space.
Tucker head coach Franklin Stephens hangs championship rings from the team's dry erase board. |
Tucker head coach Franklin Stephens walked in, carrying a collection of jewelry connected by a loop of string. He never said a word. Stephens rolled a dry erase board to the middle of the room then hung the oversized ornament on the corner of the board.
He wrote a single sentence, and then drew an arrow pointing to the jewels. It was a collection of 11 championship rings from the Tucker coaching staff. Football. Basketball. Track. Gold. Silver. Emeralds. Diamonds. The sentence read: ‘This is the reason’. Stephens walked out. The rapping stopped. A parade of players circled the board and examined the rings in awe. The team, once stone-faced and tough, became Christmas-morning anxious at the thought of earning such a gift.
The officials were due in the locker room at any moment to take the captains onto the field. Stephens returned to address the team one last time.
Players stop to check out the championship rings from the team's board. |
“We are where we want to be. We are where we thought we would be. We’re not surprised to be here. What will your legacy be at Tucker High School? Tonight you have a chance to be the measuring stick. You will always be the measuring stick until someone else wins. The lost to Marist didn’t feel good. They are not 38 points better than us. Remember [the night of the loss] when I told you to stop and look around at their fans, at their student body, how they were [celebrating] all over the place? They thought they had won the state championship. Well, they’re here and we’re here. You don’t have to do anything superhuman. Just go out there and play as hard as you can for 48 minutes. Someone in here has to do one thing…refuse to lose.”
Tigers QB Chris Beck beat Marist with his legs and his arm. Photo by Travis Hudgons. |
Stephens led his team into the tunnel near the field. The players, oblivious to their surroundings, passed a large screen displaying text messages sent by fans inside the Dome. As the Tigers walked by, a text message sent from an anonymous fan appeared: 38-0.
The Battle Begins
Marist’s junior halfback Patrick Sullivan returned the opening kickoff to the 36-yard line after a Peacock tackle. It would be Marist’s first half offensive highlight. Tucker’s first possession of the game lasted nine minutes and spilled over into the second quarter. The Marist defense held Tucker in the red zone and the first score of the game would be a Peacock 23-yard field goal.
Tucker and Marist traded defensive efforts resulting in back-to-back punts. A Chris Beck punt stranded the War Eagles on their five-yard line. Tucker defensive lineman Nicholas Potts put Marist quarterback Kyle Farmer on the turf for a safety to put Tucker up 5-0.
Nine-minute drives keep offensive units off the field. Marathon drives also keep workhorses, like senior linebacker Jonathan Davis who play both sides of the ball, on the field without getting a breather.
“A competitor like J.D. doesn’t want to come off the field,” said Stephens. “He’s been here before and lost, so I was gonna let that dog hunt.” The dog took quite a shot near the end of the first half. After a War Eagle defender crushed his mid section, Davis took himself out, ran to the bench and almost collapsed. A trainer rushed over. The captain, writhing in pain, pointed toward his ribs. He grimaced even harder as though the pain had spread to his back. Teammates began to gather with worrisome looks. A Tucker coach ran to his aide. “You ain’t got no time to be hurt. Get up!” Davis with the help of a teammate sprang to his feet.
Jonathon Davis scampers for an 11-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. Photo by Travis Hudgons |
Davis’ father, Ty, usually one of the most boisterous supporters in the crowd, pushed his way to the front of the stands. “If he’s tired, give him a rest! Give him a rest!” the ever-vocal father pleaded. “No. 1…hey No. 1,” Ty said, calling his son by jersey number. Davis turned to his father, gave a thumbs up then put a finger over a closed mouth asking the parent for silence. The boy had become the man.
Peacock again would get the glory before the half expired this time with a 27-yard field goal to put the Tigers up 8-0 going into halftime. Grandpa Peacock had managed to navigate his way through cyberspace, and was probably screaming at the computer screen by now.
Stephens would later admit the opening strategy was to get a first down early and erase the thoughts of the 10 rushing yards they were held to in the first half of the 38-0 blowout. “We usually follow a script of plays on offense,” Stephens said. “But we ran through the whole script on the first drive.”
Off script, with a small lead, Stephens reminded his team at halftime—refuse to lose for it was in this building last year that the team who refused to lose was lead by a rusty quarterback wearing a superman caped under his jersey. The halftime possession numbers told the story. Tucker kept the ball for 22 minutes, while Marist kept it for eight.
Hope and Dreams
Andy Harvill. Photo by Robin Glass. |
Andy Harvill was in the stands beaming with pride. Harvill had captained the 1963 Tucker team that lost to Dublin by one point in the state championship. He was the lone member from that team who made it to the Dome for the final. The North Carolina resident remembered the game as though it were yesterday. “We were out on a small field in south Georgia, with lights, grass and wooden bleachers and maybe 2,000 people,” Harvill said. The Marist match up in the Dome was the first Tucker football game the alum had seen in 40 years. It was worth the trip.
Marist finally got on the board with a 50-yard field goal by Justin Moore in the fourth quarter. With the score 8-3, Tucker was poised to fall victim to another come from behind lost, a one point thwart, or the dreaded last second swipe similar to the one Marist had given Rome to get into the title game.
Less than 12 minutes left in the game, Jones was pacing the sidelines. The message he’d delivered that morning about seizing opportunities to get out of the darkness was fresh on his mind. The Peacock support staff urged the kicker to keep his leg loose because it could come down to a field goal.
In the locker room before the game, Stephens had admonished James Vaughters for not paying attention. Vaughters missed a Beck pass early in the game, but made up for the drop and the locker room lecture when he nabbed a crucial 12-yard pass from Beck as part of 80-yard drive that lasted 16 plays. It was capped off with an 11-yard touchdown run by Davis. Peacock made the score 15-3.
The Tucker sideline was starting to erupt. In the mayhem, senior offensive lineman Carl Taylor was on the bench barely able to sit up, injured in the turf kill that had produced the touchdown. He flinched with pain as the pre-celebration began. Taylor closed his eyes and moaned as though he were waiting for a medic to snatch his dog tags. “Hold on!” a teammate said. “I need you to give me four more plays!”
The last four would never come.
On the battlefield, Marist had launched a last-minute air attack. An incomplete pass and then an A.J. Bouie interception that stopped the War Eagle’s last drive of the game and season, delivered Tucker’s football program where they’d never been—the promise land.
Box score
Marist 0 0 0 3 3
Tucker 3 5 0 7 15
Marist Tucker
Passing: 0 118
Rushing: 70 226
Time of Possession: Marist 11:43, Tucker 36:17
SEE GAME PHOTOS HERE
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