Randy Smith
Last week I wrote about Coach "Red" Etter and his impact on area high school football. This week, prep football kicks off yet another season and even though I spent a lot of years in television, this marks my 14th season doing high school football games on radio. I can't really count the number of games I've done....let's just say it's at least 150. For the second straight season, I'll be doing the North Georgia Game of the week on WFLI AM and FM.
We begin the season with Heritage at LFO and air time is 7:00 from Tommy Cash Stadium.
Someone once asked me why after more than a half-century in broadcasting am I still facing the early-season heat, the late season cold, the rickety old press boxes and the lack of information given out by some programs just to be on the air doing high school football? I tell them it's because I love the game. I get just as excited just before kickoff as I did when I was doing college football games on Fox or CSS. When I do high school football games on radio, I'm returning to my roots so to speak.
My first ever broadcast came in 1970 on WENO in Nashville. I was doing color on the station's high school games, after hosting scoreboard shows the previous two seasons. We were at Nashville East high school to broadcast the season opener between East and Hendersonville high. I don't remember at all which team won the game, but I do remember the old concrete press box we were in. I can also remember how proud I was to be on the air with the other announcer Paul Perry.
I had been to many high school games before, to watch and even play in a few. But the sounds and smells were never more evident to me as they were on this particular evening. The smell of grilled hamburgers, popcorn and fresh cut grass cut through the heat like a knife. The sounds of the cheerleaders, the bands and even the crowd are sounds that have been repeated many many times in my career.
There was also a sad note to that evening in 1970. Earlier that day I had gone to the funeral of one of my classmates who had been killed in Viet Nam. Toby King was just one of several of my buddies who went to war while I went to college. I have always felt a bit guilty about the fact that Toby and others went to war while I had stayed home. But because of attending Toby's funeral that day, the same day as my first high school football broadcast, I always remember Toby and others who paid the ultimate sacrifice whenever I begin a new season.
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Randy Smith can be reached at rsmithsports@epbfi.com