Junior Jordan Ford got the night going the way of the navy and gold on the opening play of the game on a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown - tying a school record.
It's the third time in RMHS football history that it's been pulled off.
Linwood Silver, brother of recent RM grad and state champion (indoor 55 meters) Chalonda Silver, did the deed in the second half of the Gryphons' 1997 meeting at Northern Nash. Current RM assistant coach Jason Battle was the QB on that Gryphon team in a 28-12 Rocky Mount win.
And Otis Sanders, who played with current Rocky Mount assistant coach and then-Gryphon QB Hank Jones on the 1984 Gryphon squad, first did it at ECU's then-called Ficklen Stadium in a 21-0 blanking of J.H. Rose.
Strangely, as you can see, all three events took place on the road.
For another interesting connection, Sanders now works with AM 1390 Sports and Gryphon color man Tony Doughtie at his 40-hour-a-week job.
Small world, isn't it!
Another note on Ford's return, the game clock said "11:55" remaining in the first period when he crossed the goal line. Now, if Jordan could go 99 yards in five seconds, we might have seen him in Beijing the week before!
Undoubtedly, the clock operator must have started the clock late - say after Ford crossed the Hunt 40. But 11:55 still goes down as the official time of the score!
And in 55 years of Rocky Mount High School football at its current Tillery St. location, no football team has ever started a season scoring 40-plus points in its first two contests - until this past Friday.The closest it ever got to doing that was in 1989 - and it lost one of them. RMHS beat SouthWest Edgecombe in its season opener on the road 40-7, then came home the next week and lost to Tarboro 41-39!
AP POLL: The first Associated Press high school football poll of the 2008 season will be released Tuesday evening and it should appear in newspapers Wednesday morning.
I expect the Gryphons, with the early fate of Western Alamance (two straight losses to start the season), to be an almost unanimous pick for the No. 1 spot in the 3-A poll.
But that means next to nothing to head coach B.W. Holt. And to tell you the truth, me either.
But if it gets more fans to come out to see the Gryphons' games, then I'll welcome it!
