"All Four County Teams Won – Con’t."

Last week I wrote about trying to find out when the last time all four county varsity football teams won on the same night (like they did on 10/31/08). I needed to know this after a shout out from Sneads Head Coach Don Dowling during the "Don Dowling Show" on CCTV.

If you recall in my column last week I noted that the Florida High School Athletic Association’s web site only goes back to 2002. There had not been a time during the past 6 seasons when all four teams had won. So I needed to go further back but as I stated in my column there is no one out there sitting around keeping won / loss records for the county football teams.

I could not have been anymore wrong and the information was almost right under my nose. To use the ole saying, "if it had been a snake it would have bit me. When I walked in to work on Friday morning (after the Times came out on Thursday) my good buddy and partner in crime, Russell Register, gave me that "oh ye of little faith" look and speech. He has every schedule with wins and losses for the four county varsity football teams dating back to 1990.

I had briefly thought of calling him while I was typing my column last week. But it was Tuesday night (the night of my deadlines) and I figured that he has some of the schedules but probably not all of them. As usual, I should have gone with my first instinct or gut feeling and called him. But I talked myself right out of it. I know that never happens to any of you.

Russell began doing Bulldog Football on the radio in 1990 and during halftime talked about what the other county schools were doing. I then joined him in 1991 and we’ve continued that practice for the past 17 years. I did not realize though that he had kept all those yearly schedules for the past 18 years. I probably thought that because I can’t keep up with my paperwork for 18 hours, much less 18 years. But he has every one of them.

So I’ve asked for his forgiveness for doubting that he had the records and in his honor I’ve included a quote attributed to his favorite coach for this week’s From the Front Porch. I think it is a fantastic quote from one of the all time great coaches in college football. Thanks Russell .

From the front porch: Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant explained his philosophy of coaching this way "There’s just three things I ever say. ‘If anything goes bad, then I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you. I can do that better than anybody. That, and I do know a little something about winning."