But it really wasn’t the end for Man.
It was only the beginning.
The message the Man football team sent to West Virginia high school football was this.
The Billies are back.
After a 25-year absence, Man football was back in the Super Six.
The Billies could very well be in it for the long haul.
With a solid feeder program and middle school team, Man could be a fixture in future Super Sixes.
Man players just didn’t want to make it to the Super Six, of course. The Billies wanted to win it, but Man already made history just by stepping out onto the Field Turf at Wheeling Island Stadium.
For the last 10 years, the Class A state championship game involved only four teams — Wheeling Central, Williamstown, Madonna and Moorefield.
Man brought some new blood to the Super Six and there’s no reason why the Billies can’t be right up there with the state’s elite.
Man is already off to a good start with last weekend’s appearance in the state championship game.
The Billies, however, lose 11 key seniors from this year’s team, including: linemen Manny Gibson and Tyler Dunigon; quarterback Ryan Crum; running backs Andrew Hale, Michael Lomax and Brandon Plymale; and two-way player and kicker Derrick Earnest; along with Jeremy Hatfield, Cory Kinningham, Steven Craddock and Evan Riggins.
Can Man make it back to Wheeling next year?
That remains to be seen.
But Man coach Harvey Arms and his coaching staff have built a solid program once again.
After decades of fielding outstanding programs under former coach Tootie Carter in the 1970s and 1980s and into the 90s, Man football went into a tailspin in the late 90s.
Carter retired from coaching and left the team after 30 years and Man went through a painful 0-10 season in 1999.
When Arms took over in 2002, he inherited a team that had won just four games the previous three seasons.
It had gotten so bad in 2001, a year before Arms took over the reigns of the program, that the Man program itself was on the verge of collapse.
That year, Man was down to only 15 players heading into the game against county rival Chapmanville.
Jerry Fekete, our longtime Man beat writer, had informed me earlier in the week that there were rumors of players who might be quitting the team, especially if the Billies were beaten by the Tigers.
If Man got down to 10 or 11 players the program would have folded.
But the Billies beat Chapmanville that year, 13-12, and the program somehow survived.
Arms was hired in 2002 and began the mammoth task of rebuilding Man’s program.
After a playoff berth in 2004 (ironically, falling to the same Weirton Madonna school in the first round), quarterfinal appearances in 2005 and 2008, the 2009 season was the culmination of nearly a decade of sweat and hard work.
But it doesn’t end on Wheeling’s frozen turf.
It’s only the beginning.
Man should be proud of their team.
The Billies weren’t able to come home with the school’s first state championship but they played extremely hard, represented Logan County well and laid down the foundation for future Man football teams. The Billies were just beaten by an outstanding Madonna team with one of the best defenses that I’ve ever seen at the prep level.
Man’s offense just couldn’t get on track against the Blue Dons, which held the Billies’ smashmouth ground game to only 69 yards and 196 total.
The Billies tried everything to get on track but Madonna’s stingy defense wouldn’t budge.
Some of Man’s fans seemed frustrated with the lack of offensive production and began yelling from the stands in the second half but I don’t know what could have been done to move the ball more effeciently.
Madonna stopped Man’s running game and held Crum’s passing pretty much in check.
Even mighty Wheeling Central, the winners of numerous Class A state championships, including six in this decade alone — could only manage a single touchdown in the team’s 18-7 loss to Madonna in the Class A state semifinals a week before.
It might be stating the obvious, but Madonna was the superior team.
But that’s not going to take away anything Man has accomplished in this memorable 2009 season, which included three home playoff wins over Parkersburg Catholic, Fayetteville and Richwood in front of packed crowds at Man’s George A. Queen Memorial Field.
The Billies may have come up a bit short but Man will be back.
There’s no question.
They will be back.
Congratulations to the Man Hillbillies on a fantastic 2009 season.
n Last Saturday was my first trip to the Super Six and to Wheeling.
I was generally impressed with the first-class way the state championships were run by the hosts.
But with that being said I was also surprised at the relatively mediocre at best conditions of the Field Turf at Wheeling Island Stadium.
Although the turf is only five years old it seemed matted down and worn out, resembling the old, carpet-like AstroTurf of yesteryear.
If you have ever walked onto a stadium with good Field Turf you will notice right away that the artificial grass blades are sticking straight up and soft.
Simply put, it looks and feels like real grass.
I have been to Charleston’s Laidley Field and Bluefield’s Mitchell Stadium and walked onto their Field Turfs, which were in near perfect condition.
The Wheeling Island Field Turf was not in great condition and nowhere near the quality of a Mitchell Stadium, a Laidley Field or the artificial surfaces at Marshall or WVU.
I’m not here to pass judgment on the folks at Wheeling.
The Super Six was hosted in a first-class manner and I don’t think the championships should be moved to Charleston at this point.
I was just a bit surprised by the turf, that’s all.
I thought it would be in better condition for the three championships games.
n Before leaving for Wheeling I was told to prepare for the cold.
After looking at the weather forecast I was ready.
I brought my extra heavy leather jacket, and wore long johns, a thick sweatshirt, a
T-shirt underneath and had a ski cap on.
But it was still freezing cold!
First there was the little snowstorm on Saturday morning which swept through southern West Virginia and the Kanawha Valley that myself and some Man fans had to drive through.
Then with temperatures in the low 20s during the Man-Madonna game it was very uncomfortable to say the least. The only relief were these two huge heat blowers underneath the bleachers on Man’s sideline that I would go to from time to time to thaw out my hands.
Last Saturday was the furthest north I’ve been in 15 years. As many of you know, I was born and raised in Michigan and once experienced temperatures of 35 degrees below zero in the dead of winter while I was a senior at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Mich.
It might have only been about 20 on Saturday, but man was I glad to get to a warm car and a warm hotel room.
Maybe I’ve gotten used to the more mild weather here in southern West Virginia.
Maybe I’ve wimped out some, I don’t know.
But I’ll tell you this, with it being the college bowl season, now I know why no one wants to play outside in Boise at the end of December.
– Paul Adkins is the Sports Editor of the Logan Banner
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