I celebrated a birthday last week. The fact it pops up in the middle of high school football season only serves as a reminder of how long I’ve been covering local sports.
Around 2004, I vowed that if I didn’t get a college play-by-play job in football, I would stop doing high school sports and do something else.
My favorite cliche isn’t “The more things change, the more they stay the same” for nothing.
In the 1990s, there was a school mired in a three-year winless streak that was easily the 98-pound weakling of Durham County.
That was Jordan High School. After having winless seasons in 1995 and 1996, they had a conference championship team by 2000.
Now, the Falcons may be the best team in the city under Antonio King, who was the Cedar Ridge head coach in 2019.
For three decades, the shining beacon of high school football was Northern Durham. Not just in Durham, but the entire state.
They won 17 consecutive conference championships, went 24 years without losing to another team from the city of Durham and went 21 years without losing consecutive games. In the fall of 1990, Northern lost to Person at home.
They didn’t lose another conference game the rest of the decade.
Fast forward to September 2024 when Vance County stormed out to a 22-0 lead against Northern Durham. The Knights lost their starting quarterback due to injury and the game was stopped before regulation ended.
If you would have told me back in 1999 that in 25 years, there would even be a remote possibility of Northern not having enough football participation, I would have told you there was a better chance of opera being the most popular music taste among teenagers in 2024.
The point is nothing lasts forever in high school football.
Cedar Ridge football lost to Orange 54-0 on Friday night. Most likely, the Red Wolves will finish with a second straight winless season.
But they aren’t winless because of the players who are on the field. They’re winless because of the players who are not on the field, but could be.
At a time when football, as a whole, has never been more safe to play, it’s harder to find players willing to try the sport because of safety concerns. Last year, for the first time in school history, Orange didn’t field a junior varsity team.
Fortunately, the Stanback Middle School Bulldogs have fielded more players this year which will hopefully lead to healthier participation numbers in the future for the Red Wolves.
Cedar Ridge coach Brent Bailey remains dedicated to the cause. Even down late in the fourth quarter against Orange, Bailey gave defensive back Matthew Asay a chest bump after picking off a pass thrown by Orange quarterback Kyse Devore.
Bailey drives in 90 minutes from Clayton each morning to start practice at 7AM because he wants to make Cedar Ridge football great. He has organized midnight practices in July and set up media day at Radius Pizza, which included Orange, in August because he wants to see football flourish in Hillsborough.
And so do I. No sport bands as many people together during successful times than football.
I saw Devon Moore rush for over 6,000 yards and 42 touchdowns at Cedar Ridge from 2002-2005 at Cedar Ridge. Then he graduated and won two FCS National Championships at Appalachian State. For a long time, the Red Wolves dominated Hillsborough under the direction of head coaches Lou Geary and Joe Kilby.
What does triumph look like once it emerges from a deep abyss?
It looks like FirstBank Stadium in Nashville on Saturday night.
The Vanderbilt Commodores, the only private school in the SEC, beat #1 Alabama for the first time since 1984. Clark Lea, the Commdores head coach, knew when he accepted the job in 2001 of the challenges he faced. He played at Vanderbilt.
But he persisted and beat the #1 team in the country.
Afterwards, he told sportswriter Matt Fortuna “There’s an inevitability to success when you stay in the fight.”
Cedar Ridge football can have a Vanderbilt moment.
They just have to stay in the fight.