Taking Names and Keeping Score
Honoring the past
Charlie
Anderson

With Thomasville High School celebrating their homecoming this Friday and choosing to honor all the classes whose senior year ends in a six, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at all those classes and the Thomasville football teams whose seniors played their last game for Thomasville in the fall before graduating in the springs of 1916, 1926, 1936, 1946, 1956, 1966, 1976, 1986, and 1996. That of course would be the Tiger football teams of 1915, 1925, 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985 and 1995.

Well the graduating class of 1916 didn't have a football team in the fall of 1915 as records indicate the first football team ever fielded at Thomasville High School didn't play until the fall of 1916. That team played one game against the First District Agricultural School (Jackson High School) on November 16, 1916 with the game ending just as it had started knotted at 0-0.

The seniors in the graduating class of 1926 did have a team in the fall of 1925 that posted a 4-2-1 record. Coached by H. L. Stevenson the Tigers defeated county rival Jackson 20-0 and tied Clarke County 6-6 in the only game on their slate that season that ended in a tie.

In 1935, the football team that had in its number some senior players from the graduating class of 1936, became the second undefeated and untied team led by Coach D. F. Anderson Jr. who had started his coaching career at Thomasville in the fall of 1931. That team finished 9-0-0 limiting their opponents to only 28 points while scoring 219 points themselves.

The graduating class of 1946 had some fond memories of their final football season in the fall of 1945 finishing the season 6-1-1 under the tutelage of Coach D. F. Anderson Jr. They too showed a propensity toward playing good defense limiting their opponents to only 32 points during the season while scoring 202 points.

In the fall of 1955 the five senior football players that would graduate in the spring of 1956 saw their Tiger team break even with a 5-5-0 record. They did however, under the leadership of Coach D. F. Anderson Jr., lay claim to the Clarke County Championship defeating Clarke County High School 6-0 and Jackson High School 19-6.

The class of 1966 had among its number 11 seniors who played on the 1965 football team that recorded an 8-1-1 record in the one and only season that Charles Solomon served as the Tigers' head coach.

Among that team's most memorable games had to be a 13-7 win on the road over previously unbeaten and perennial powerhouse Linden.

In the fall of 1975 Coach Carvell Rowell directed a football team that ended up 8-5, losing their final game of the season in the third round of the state playoffs 22-21 to Hokes Bluff. The great season they had started slowly for this group of Tigers with the record after the first five games of the season being 1 and 4. Ten players off that squad donned a cap and gown in the spring of 1976.

The ten Tiger football players who picked up their high school diploma in the spring of 1986 were part of the 1985 Thomasville Tiger football team that accumulated an 8-3 record under Coach Bill McNair. In addition to winning the area championship one of the fondest memories this outstanding Tiger team created was a 15-13 upset win in Mobile over highly favored UMS.

In 1995 Coach Terry Jones in the second year of his two year stint as Thomasville's head football coach, directed his team that included only seven senior players to a 7-6 record losing out in the state playoffs in the third round. Included in the good memories the seven senior football players off that squad took with them after their graduation in the spring of 1996 were big playoff wins over highly favored Montevallo and Sumter County in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Looking back as we have, the one thing that stands out to me above all the other accomplishments of these individual teams is the tradition of Thomasville High School Football. Just as each of these teams made memories for themselves that will transcend time so is the team now playing at THS here in 2006.

Each one of the Tiger teams past, present and those yet to come in are part of a legacy that has been handed down one year at a time dating back to that first team in 1916. Although most of the teams in the 91-year span from 1916 to the present have come out with winning records there have been some that didn't. Even those teams who can't claim a winning season are an important part of the Thomasville Football legacy for it is sometimes the lessons we learn in losing that best prepare us to be winners and teach us how to deal with problems we face in living the life we've been given.

Until next time.................be safe!

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