That was just heart-breaking. Joe told Martin, Ill give you three reasons: One, Ill give you a winning season, which youve never had. All the 1980 UGA stars are mentioned, but also prominently featured are teammates such as Nat Hudson, Hugh Nall, Jimmy Womack, Amp Arnold, Jimmy Payne, Eddie Weaver and Nate Taylor and assistant coaches Mike Cavan and Wayne McDuffie, among others. She finally came in and dumped it on his lap. He played both football and basketball at Clemson and was a three-year starter on the hardwood. ATHENS The Georgia Bulldogs were mad. One of their defensive linemen, Charles Bergman, got hold of Bucks jersey at the sleeve, and ripped it right off his back, Lastinger said. He played four seasons in the CFL and USFL, then became a professional wrestler and the WCW heavyweight champion in 1992. We just rolled with it and said the timing is the timing. The Georgia football team had just put a bow on an undefeated regular season with a resounding 38-20 win over Georgia Tech in 1980 when the players awoke the following morning to news that coach Vince Dooley reportedly was leaving to become coach and athletic director at Auburn. Hyder became head coach your freshman year. And a Plains teen girl borrowed Jimmy Carters clothes. So the Viking flag flew high and proud over the Valdosta stadium property, for at least a little while.. I'd gone through and written it probably in the late 80s, then a couple of years later changed ityou know, write, rewrite, write, rewrite. He has ordered it, however. 1 high school football player of all-time in a 2007 article. The police asked us about the flyers, and coach Jerry Don Baker came walking over and told the cops the plane had a Lowndes County Vikings license plate, Henderson said with a laugh. Valdosta City Schools ; J. L. Lomax Elementary School ; Pinevale Elementary School ; Sallas Mahone Elementary ; S.L. He was the 1974 AJC Class 3A Back of the Year and was a 1974 Coach & Athlete All-American. Valdosta is the principal city of the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2021 had a population of 149,590. Bazemore watched you play in youth ball and suggested to the coaches that they move you to quarterback. Heads up to Atlanta area high school quarterbacks and receivers: I'll be hosting my annual QB Passing Camp this July, again. You mentioned that you saw many of the players that were on the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame ballot or were voted in. I knew coverage, I knew techniques, things that it seemed like these other quarterbacks didnt understand at the time. He started in 78 out of 92 career games, made three Pro Bowls and was first-team All Pro once. Buck Belue 0:00 0:32 The "best team ever" conversation is an interesting one. He went on to play both football and baseball at Georgia. I would soak up all this knowledge. A couple of the mules handlers were able to catch the mule and bring him back to the field house. They already had been to Jacksonville, Fla., Macon and Columbus. ], Ive also got some memories of Coach Hyder trying to turn the program around, and he took me to some playoff games to watch Michael Jolly [the quarterback on Central-Macons 1975 Class 3A championship team]. They are two very-talented guys. But the current Wildcats still know who he is. He recalled how Valdosta supporters would take the opportunity in front of a full house of fans from both sides to get the Cats fired up just one more time. We had weight limits, and if you weighed a certain amount, you couldnt play in the backfield, and I was a bigger kid then. Nelson knows he can't be too careful after he sparked a small-town tempest in the high school football hotbed of Valdosta, a city of more than 56,000 residents located about 15 miles north of the . And when it came to recruiting, he was the only coach I felt like I could trust with the baseball thing. There were a lot of guys who had a huge impact to the success of those teams.]. And when he showed up. I appreciate these guys taking time out of their busy schedules to come out here and work with these players, Belue said. Buck Belue is best known as the quarterback who led Georgia to its 1980 national championship, but he was widely known before that as a high school athlete. The Valdosta Wildcats have been playing football since 1913, and with over 900 wins, 24 state championships, six national championships, and a bunch of region titles, they remain the winningest high school football team in the country. I talked with Coach [Jim] Hughes about that later. This biographical article relating to an American football quarterback born in the 1950s is a stub. BY DAN MATHEWS. UGA star Jalen Carter present at scene of fatal crash, From 2021: Buck Belue, QB of 1980 Georgia national champions, to call the Dawgs before kickoff, Georgia Tech hammers Syracuse as Jackets late-season surge continues, Braves notes: Jared Shusters first spring game, Michael Sorokas progress, Ian Anderson on spring debut: Im not gonna sugarcoat it. Its important to me to come back and pass that knowledge along. Chuck Knoll's Steelers were champions and as. Reid is forever known for The Run against Valdosta in the 2007 game. The best player that I played with was our quarterback, Kareem Wilson, in 1995, Henderson recalled. I remember Buck had to go to the locker room and get another jersey. Belue devotes several chapters to his high school days pursuing state championships under coach Nick Hyder. Rogers was among three Georgians named to the 1976 Coach & Athlete All-America team. One of the key plays in the 1980 season was a 93-yard touchdown pass from Belue to wide receiver Lindsay Scott[1] The following year, he put up a career-best 714 rushing yards. That passage appears in Chapter 18 -- titled The Dooley Drama -- of the 199-page book. Freshman Buck Belue took over the starting Quarterback job at Valdosta in 1974 and he didn't give it back until he used up his eligibility. Doug Henderson, whose sons Ashley, Justin, and Doug all played at Valdosta, recalled a prank in the mid-90s that was designed to fire up the Wildcat players. In 2007, the AJC ranked Kinnebrew as the No. VALDOSTA, Ga. (WCTV) - The Valdosta High School football team has been hit with sanctions from the Georgia High School Association following an investigation into the program. These two Wildcat backers agree on their most memorable moment: The Comeback.. You also talk about the other coaches at Valdosta, especially Joe Wilson, who later became Lowndes head coach and led the Vikings to a 1980 state title, and Jack Rudolph, Valdostas longtime defensive mastermind [and father of Georgia Tech and NFL player Coleman Rudolph]. It remains one of those indelible football moments from which Buck Belue can never escape, nor does he want to. He sort of chuckled and said there was a lot of built-up frustration over those years of losing to Valdosta, Dont take it personally is what I believe he said., 5. The highly recruited player chose Florida State and became the Seminoles first two-time consensus All-American (1979-80). Closed on Weekends. Under Review. "I have been a Wildcat all my life, so Valdosta City Schools will always be a part of me. Seeing Andy Johnson in 1969 was one of my first recollections of high school football [at the 1969 Class 3A championship game between Athens and Valdosta at Cleveland Field]. Belue will host a book signing for his new book "Inside the Hedges". He was a country boy and proud of it. As a young boy there growing up in Valdosta, we all dreamed of the day we would get to high school and wear that Wildcat uniform and win a state title. It was not very good, Georgias home finale ends with a thud vs. Florida, Atlanta Uniteds Franco Ibarra settling into his natural role, GHSA basketball state tournament: Quarterfinals updates from Tuesday, Class 5A girls basketball: Kell 68, Bradwell Institute 54, Timber frame office building at Ponce City Market Atlanta starts to rise, Supreme Court hearing on student loan forgiveness: What it means for Georgians. Breaking down Vaughn Grissom trying to replace Dansby Swanson at shortstop. It got to be a normal thing to see fans pulling over off of Ashley Street and Patterson Street and getting out of their cars to fight, Redshaw said. High School Highlights - Portal state basketball advances Prep Sports Blitz - Feb. 18, 2023 The Eagles Nest - Feb. 19, 2023 Because official statistics are not required or maintained by any state organization, the records that we display here come from individual schools and from media reports, primarily newspapers. Jan 26. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Herschel Walker was the lone unanimous selectee for the inaugural class of the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame, selected on 35 of 35 ballots. There was still a chance for the Vikings if they could return the kickoff, but they never got the chance. The longtime Lowndes coach was quick to offer his memory of the best performance he saw in the Classic. Lowndes athletic director Danny Redshaw said things have calmed down considerably between the two sides today, but there was a time when the Winnersville Classic put both Lowndes and Valdosta on high alert. Even though we had practiced riding the mule out there on the field several times, we had not done it with 12,000 screaming fans, Prince recalled with a laugh. Sports Illustrated said last fall . Net Worth in 2021. Way too much credit is given to Herschel (Walker) and Lindsay (Scott) and Buck. Tales like McGuyrts are part of a timeless record shared by Valdosta-area locals. This isn't conjecture, it's really fact. He was the quarterback, and he went to Ole Miss. High 84F. I remember in the 1981 game, quarterback John Bond took off down the Lowndes sideline and ran for an 80-yard touchdown, Baker said. With Coach Bazemore, I just looked at him as an innovator offensively. He set Georgias career rushing record of 6,137 yards. We got the ball with about three or four minutes left inside our own 10 and drove down to the 1-yard line with like two seconds left. Belue also talked to all of the players about being positive influences and representing themselves and the Valdosta Wildcats well. Its a chance to give back to this place, which jump-started everything I was able to do. Latest: Gallery: Buck Belue book signing at Coach's Corner I showed them some drills that helped me, and I hope theyll help them as well. The first time I played quarterback was in the eighth grade. He bypassed his senior season and went to the USFL and totaled 7,046 all-purpose yards and 61 touchdowns in three years. The head coaches would always come and speak to the small gathering. Youd see him around town and stop and go wow. Youd be in awe. The most improbable win for either team was this one, with Valdosta overcoming a 17-7 deficit in just 1:14 to win the Winnersville Classic over Lowndes. 1. There were so many, but I remember Todd Peterson in the 1987 game kicking a 47-yard field goal to beat Lowndes at their place, OBrien said. He also added 1,487 rushing yards and 87 passing or rushing touchdowns. In 2007, the AJC ranked him the No. Way too much credit is given to Herschel (Walker) and Lindsay (Scott) and Buck. He fell short of a state title when Clarke Central beat Valdosta 16-14 in the 1977 Class 3A championship. Copyright 2023 M & S Media Group LLC. He was the most successful Lowndes coach against the Wildcats in the series. A third Wildcat quarterback to be storied among these pages of Bulldawg Illustrated, this is Greg Talley, an alumni of Valdosta High School and the University of Georgia sounds familiar.For two of my previous 2019 columns, quarterbacks at VHS and Georgia (Buck Belue and John Lastinger) have been featured, so why stop there?A few years after these studs suited up in the silver britches, we . Hopefully the renewed interest in the program would spill over and may have people interested in what happened in 1980.". 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