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WWW.NEWSANDPRESS.NET AUGUST 17, 2016 F20O16 OSeaTsoBn PAreLvieLw LAMAR HIGH ............... 4 HARTSVILLE HIGH .... 6 DARLINGTON HIGH. .... 8 TRINITY-BYRNES ...... 14 A PUBLICATION OF THE NEWS & PRESS, DARLINGTON, S.C. FOOTBALL 2016 Injuries and illnesses happen fast, shouldn’t the treatment? For most non-life-threatening injuries and illnesses, more convenient access, shorter waits and lower costs make everybody feel better. McLeod Urgent Care Centers are fully staffed and equipped with treatment options for both children and adults – ready to treat everything from broken bones and bruises to cuts and coughs. No appointment is necessary, they’re open seven days a week, and they’re most often a more affordable option than hospital emergency departments. For those with no primary physician, referrals can be made for exceptional follow-up treatment. McLeod Urgent Care, the care you need when there’s no time to wait. www.McLeodUrgentCare.org Open 7 Days a Week Monday - Friday: 8 am - 8 pm | Saturday & Sunday: 9 am - 4 pm 964 Lochend Drive, Darlington 3015 West Palmetto Street, Florence 843-777-6890 843-777-6870 Accepting private insurance and Medicare. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2016 2 NEWS AND PRESS DARLINGTON, S.C. FOOTBALL 2016 The 1-in-10-million-billion town her, "I must be doing a pretty good job, I still By Eric Adelson Yahoo Sports got both of you." April 25, 2016 Hamlin looks back with a laugh: "He was Editor’s Note: Many thanks to Eric wild and crazy, in a good way." Adelson for allowing us permission to print Corey Fountain, a Shot disciple who is this story! now the state champion head coach, said his fifth-grade teacher once asked him if every - The old men gather here every morning, thing was all right at home, because he had with their sun-baked caps and their soda some bruises on his arms. "Yes, ma'am," he cans. This is their country club: the Gay Ann said. "I was just practicing football with Shot." convenience store at the Exxon station, at a "Oh," the teacher said. "OK." folding table by the stacks of beer cases. The "Our parents knew it was going to create a cashier runs the store and pays them little toughness," Fountain says. mind. The men talk about the weather and At Lamar High, J.R. Boyd and Big Daddy whatever, as old folks do, but lately they've Poole picked up where Shot left off. The been talking about the kid who used to offenses weren't always scintillating, but the work at this place: B.J. defenses, where each of the Lamar five There's only one main road here in this played, were often ferocious. The 2004 team town, and it passes by the Gay Ann and by Clemson's B.J. Goodson is allowed 31 total points in 15 games, and Boyd City Hall, which is across from the Piggly ready to take his place among laments how that total would have been Wiggly. Inside is one hallway with three the greats from Lamar. (AP) lower if Lamar kept its starters in. doors on the left. The nameplates read: Goodson, born in 1993 and old enough to "Mayor," "Chief" and "Judge." There's a "Our town," Goodson says, "is famous for for safety. When the kids got old enough to remember that vaunted team, is the latest courtroom too, with folding chairs, and football." hit, he would run drills under bleachers, to product. three photos on the wall outside. They are It wasn't always that way. Lamar – which emphasize staying low through the tackle. Goodson's education went beyond Shot pictures of the state champion Lamar High sits an hour from Columbia, two hours from There weren't a lot of facilities to work with, and the Lamar coaches, though. Hamlin was School football team. Charlotte, N.C., and four hours from then or now, so Shot ran his practices in junior high when 6-year-old B.J. would Another group of men gathers a little Atlanta – was the unlikely setting for one of "wherever there was a patch of grass." come over to his yard and want to play with further away, at Lamar High. They are the more troubling events in the state's civil Shot's wife eventually got upset with all the bigger kids. They had been mentored by beloved and feared, authoritarian guys rights movement. In February of 1970, a his time spent coaching, and made him an Shot, of course, and they were just as "mean" with military backgrounds, offering stern fight over the desegregation of local schools ultimatum: "the kids or me." Forty years after as the old tobacco farmer. looks and calloused hands. One is nick - boiled over into the toppling of two school he started this, long after four of his players named "Shot," another is "Big Daddy," a buses. No one was seriously hurt, but the have made it to the NFL, he likes to remind LAMAR ON 16 third is J.R. Together they have produced an news reverberated all over South Carolina incredible feat: four NFL players from a and gave the tiny town a slice of history that high school of roughly 300 kids over a span it didn't want. of less than 25 years. Levon Kirkland (Class "It was terrible," says Janie Howell, a of 1986) was the first, then John Abraham long-time local resident. ('96), then Mike Hamlin ('04), then "It was not Lamar people," she says. "We Marshall McFadden ('05). had people who came in from neighboring Soon there will be a fifth, Clemson line - places who were the instigators." DDON’tO miss backer B.J. Goodson ('11), who wowed At that point, little Lamar could have scouts at the NFL Combine last month with gone in any direction. Desegregation went 30 bench press reps at 225 pounds and a ahead, and it meant the Spaulding High 4.69 40-yard dash. He went from off the kids would be going to school with the ThrowbackT radar to a possible third-round pick. Lamar High students. That would affect a How rare is it for five NFL players to child born only a year before the distur - come from one town of 1,000 people (989 bance broke out. His name was Levon Weekend to be exact) in a span of 25 years? Yahoo Kirkland. Sports asked a handful of experts and "My ninth-grade year was when they mathematicians around the country. One consolidated," he says now. "I was a guy that couldn't come up with an answer. Jeffrey was slotted to go to Spaulding; I was one of Forrester, associate professor of math at the ones to start it." Dickinson College (Pa.), put the chances at He started more than he ever imagined. approximately 0.0000000000797. Yes, Something else began during Kirkland's that's 10 zeros. (Forrester notes the odds of childhood: a man named Shot Windham being dealt a royal flush are 0.00000154, or began teaching kids football in 1976. about 20,0000 times more likely.) Dominic Windham served in Vietnam and owned a Yeo, who is studying math at Oxford, large chunk of farmland near Lamar. He approximated the probability as 1 in "ten loved children and he loved football too. So million billion." after school, he started a tot team and Each of the five came out of Lamar with helped them learn the game. a style of play built on persistence and pun - "He was the meanest coach ever!" joked ishment, a trademark of this old farming Mike Hamlin, a Shot student, who was town that has somehow become Football drafted in the fifth round of the 2009 draft City, U.S.A. by the Dallas Cowboys. "It's teensy, teensy, tiny," says Jana Pye, Many years before heads-up tackling editor of the local newspaper News And because a common phrase, Shot would tell Press. "You wouldn't even know it unless 5- and 6-year-olds to "bite the football," or you're there." keep their chins jutted forward at all times SEPTEMBER 2-4, 2016 866.459.7223 | DARLINGTONRACEWAY.COM NEWS AND PRESS DARLINGTON, S.C. 3 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2016 FOOTBALL 2016 The 2016 Lamar High School varsity football team. Coming off a championship year, Lamar aims to repeat LHS Varsity simple. It is Lamar. Just do not tell Fountain that. a player and leader and now a Schedule By Drake Horton Contributing Writer In this small town football is He wants to shift the focus from new group of players must step Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. more than a tradition, it is con - winning a championship to tak - in. With every new season come sidered by most to be a way of ing the season one step at a Unfortunately for Fountain, Aug. 19 LHS vs. new expectations, and usually life. Each and every year the res - time. he is not quite sure who those Hannah Pamplico those expectations are predicat - idents of Lamar expect nothing “I don’t ever think about the players will be yet. Aug. 26 LHS @ Central ed from the previous season. but success from their Silver end result,” Fountain said. “I “We will see what we have Sept. 2 LHS @ Darlington Depending on how the previ - Foxes, and for the most part think it is important that each when we get to our first scrim - Sept. 9: LHS @ Eau Claire ous season went, expectations each Lamar team has delivered. week you stay focused and you mage,” Fountain said.