The Purpose

[IGTBAAT 2]

This football video was uploaded September 17, 2009. The Demopolis Tigers were struggling under their 2nd year head coach. By most accounts they were underachieving, by others, they were just young. There was turmoil in the community and some on the coaching staff. In the last game of their regular season they were taken to the woodshed by their archrival, Thomasville, where they were thoroughly beaten and humiliated in their house.

The Tigers limped into the playoffs where most expected them to be elimanated, and they nearly were, by a very talented Shelby team. But somewhere, somehow, these young kids discovered that in life, the only thing you really have any control over is whether you choose to fight or quit. And they decided, win or lose, they would fight. And they fought and they won.

Their victory earned them a return trip to Greenville, another rival team who had dismantled the Tigers earlier in the season. # 92 DT Kenneth Carter was a senior on the Greenville team. Everyone expected the outcome to be no different the second time around but someone forgot to tell the kids from Demopolis. In the semi finals the Tigers faced a heavily favored Spanish Fort team, I believe Reese Dismukes was a member of that team. The Tigers went for two with less than a minute to win the game. Finally, they faced Russellville at Bryant Denny and once again, no one expected them to make it a contest, much less defeat the combination of Russellville's high powered offense and dominating defense. Russellville was lead by UA signee Brent Calloway, in fact, every team Demopolis faced had at least one D-1 recruit. The Tigers never walked on the gridiron as the biggest, strongest, fastest or most talented. But when the scoreboard clock at Bryant Denny ticked down to 00 it was Demopolis 27 Russellville 14. Demopolis was the 5A State Champions. Their running back who was a junior gained more yards in the play-offs than he did during the regular season and he set a rushing record in the final game.

The video below had been circulating for weeks, but after the beatdown by Thomasville, a group of Tigers, underclassmen, got together and watched it and took it to heart. In the end they decided that in football, as in life, where you start doesn't matter, and even where you finish isn't as important as what you do in between that truly counts.

BTW, the two leaders on that team were running back No. 4 and LG 56. Both juniors, both were men of few words, but their actions in the weight room and on the practice field spoke volumes requiring little to be said at game time.

War Eagle