MACON — Don’t call Tyrone Shorter crazy.
That might be your first inclination if you’ve seen the schedule Shorter assembled for his Noxubee County High School football team this season.
Cupcakes? Shorter doesn’t believe in them.
Sure, the veteran coach enjoys sweet treats as much as anyone, but he prefers to offer his football team healthy tests that will prepare it for the rigors of region play.
This season, Noxubee County’s schedule includes five non-region games against perennial powers from the area. To add intrigue, three of the matchups — Starkville, Columbus, and West Point — feature Golden Triangle teams.
If you include Class 4A, Region 4 meetings against Kosciusko and Louisville, it’s safe to say Noxubee County has seven “rivalry” games on its 2015 slate. Is that too many?
It might not be enough, according to Shorter.
“Looking at our first six games of the season, I started listening to what the people were saying, ‘Coach, are you crazy?’ ” Shorter said. “It is good, though, because it is not that far away — less than an hour travel distance — and your program is going to make money and it is going to help both programs. To me, everybody in the Golden Triangle should play each other.”
Rivalry games add flavor to a team’s schedule. While there is a buzz in every town surrounding its team’s game Friday night, a rivalry game generates more talk because it involves bragging rights or a claim of geographical superiority over another team.
For Shorter, the addition of Meridian and Kemper County filled several valuable needs. It gave the Tigers opportunities to play perennial powers in different classifications (Class 6A, Class 3A). It also enabled them to find tough competition without having to travel too far, which should help each school when it comes to the gate, or attendance at each game.
“I have never been to a place that has had this many rivalry games,” Shorter said. “You normally will have one or two, but it seems like every week we are playing a rivalry game. We don’t like them. They don’t like us.”
All coaches don’t agree with Shorter.
But rivalry games are littered throughout the schedules of area teams. Some, like West Point-Starkville, Heritage Academy-Starkville Academy, Aberdeen-Amory, and New Hope-Caledonia, have stood the test of time. Others, like Heritage Academy-West Lowndes and Heritage Academy-Columbus Christian, are designed to create new rivalries that benefit both programs and meet their needs.
Heritage Academy coach Barrett Donahoe said scheduling a local opponent like West Lowndes or Caledonia is different than playing Pisgah High, which is in Brandon, because there is more Lowndes County interest. He hopes those games will generate the enthusiasm and the tradition his program feels when it plays opponents like Starkville Academy and Oak Hill Academy.
“Rivalries are fun,” Donahoe said. “You don’t have to worry about the kids being excited. You don’t have to worry about the kids giving maximum effort. You know you’re going to get it that week so you’re able to prepare the way you want to prepare.”
Donahoe said the biggest rivalry he has been a part of as a head coach is Marshall Academy-Magnolia Heights. He said that matchup “was a pure hatred rivalry” and that “there was no camaraderie between the schools.”
No matter which rivalry it is, though, Donahoe said each game brings out the best in everybody and typically generates great crowds, which is what he has seen for his team’s games against Caledonia and West Lowndes.
“The Caledonia game that we played for four years was a tremendous game for the community,” Donahoe said. “It wasn’t just Caledonia or Heritage people. Lowndes County came out for those games…they were big.”
Donahoe said rivalry games don’t need “hatred” between the teams or a competitive balance in the results of the matchups. Instead, he said “mutual respect” is something both teams need to make the games special.
Randal Montgomery, who is in his second season as head coach at Columbus, has stepped into a number of rivalry games in the Golden Triangle. In addition to playing Noxubee County and New Hope in the first three weeks, Columbus will play West Point on Friday in its final non-region games.
Last week, Columbus defeated New Hope 27-6 in one of Lowndes County’s biggest rivalries. It marked the sixth-straight year the programs have played.
“It’s a really big game,” Montgomery said of the game against New Hope. “It’s probably the biggest game of the year because the players go to church with one another and eat at the same restaurants as one another. You always want to be better than your brother, roommate, best friend. That is what that game is about, being better than the guys from the other side of town. These players date the same girls, too, so it’s good to have bragging rights.”
But Montgomery said it is crucial for coaches to maintain balance between rivalry games and the region schedule. After all, no coach wants his fans to call him crazy.
“You have to keep everything in perspective because the region games decide whether you go to the playoffs or not,” Montgomery said. “The best thing about our rivalry games is they start the season, so you have good focus in the month of August when it is hot and some days you don’t want to be out there.”
Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters contributed to this story.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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