The Mighty Jaguars 9th Grade Team Goes 0-7

This was the most surreal school year of my life. Alot of weird shit went on that year just at the school. This is the year that we had 1- a bus driver strike, 2- a teacher fired and then suing and getting rehired over a skit written about a girl in class, 3- a gang riot which caused 17 expulsions, and 4- an 0-7 football team. People all over that school made fun of us and said shit like "man we're gonna suck here in a few years when those guys get up there playing." But, here's what people forget:

• JJ played the ENTIRE season with a hip pointer, basically taking away our option attack with Ne Ne.
• Buckles missed 3 games with a deep thigh bruise.
• Alot of the games we lost were flukes or on weird plays. Warren Central beat us 6-0 and 12-6 that season. Pearl beat us 23-22.
  
• We had the worst coach ever. Freddie Lee had no continuity whatsoever on that team. I was taking snaps with the first team defense all week in practice and then not playing. Then, I would take snaps on second team defense, and play offense. We had 5 starting secondaries that season.
• Alot of players quit- good for the long term in varsity, but it's hard to replace starters in midseason no matter what level you're playing on.
• We played 5 road games and 2 home games. We had a home game with Warren Central cancelled due to a tornado warning, and those mother fuckers made us go there TWICE.
  

Anyway, we still sucked. For some reason we had 400 coaches in practice and for our two home games, but only Bradberry and Lee wanted to go to road games- just sounds like a case of "coaching when it's convenient". The funny thing is we played all those same schools again in varsity and beat all of em. What the hell happened that year? However, let me leave you with some very hilarious memories from our crazy season with Freddie Lee.

• Will Davis- that's all I have to say.
• Calvin jumping offsides against Pearl when Cody called gap. Buckles threw his hat on the field. We had to punt and they scored the winning TD. I had the biggest hit of my life in this game on a kickoff- it was kinda an accident but I drilled the ball carrier.
• Never having matching helmets. I remember Chad and Logan played the whole season with black helmets.
• One of my favorite Justice moments ever. After Ne Ne had a long TD run called back on a holding call on Brad Welch, Artha broke one for about 70 yards. Again, it was called back for holding. When asked the #, the official said "number 39"- Artha's number. (I could be mistaken on that) Lee, Liles, McLain all went ballistic. At this time, Justice came busting out of the press box and ran onto the field and said "that mother fucking son of a bitch is never gonna ref a game on this field again!". Justice got into the act and lit that poor guy up for all he was worth, and coached the rest of the game on the sideline- remember the coaching when it's convenient thing? Plus I think he was mad it was Sammy Dantone on the opposite sideline.
  
• Like I said, the starters would never practice.
  
• Here were all of our coaches to some extent that season- Lee, McLain, Bradberry, McCune, Liles, Justice, Rosamond. I think that's all of em- we sucked, but we didn't need that many coaches. Maybe we were "over coached".
  
• Random guys like Jeff Case, Brad Welch, David Brown, and David Hogan who were actually seeing playing time quit out of nowhere and for no reason. THAT was weird.
• The damn 8th grade guys talked so much shit about how they could beat us. Well, we never found out because all the guys talking shit went to MRA because they couldn't cut it on the 5A level

Well, after a nail biting loss 36-12 to the Clinton Arrows, our 9th grade season finally came to an end. I remember Freddie Lee's post game speech. "I sincerely hope you guys can feel the feeling of what it's like to be winners very soon, because you deserve it. This was my first time to ever coach a 9th grade team, so thanks for making my first season an 0-7 one." He lost his first 2 the next year, and then Nowell took over.

Fact- we went 12 games in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade between wins. We lost 3 in a row and then tied our last game in 8th grade, lost all 7 in 9th, and then lost our varsity opener to Louisville.

Another fact- Freddie Lee said the first day of practice that he doesn't cuss and that "we could say anything he says"- that lasted real long.