Owls, Braves renew football rivalry
September 20th, 2007, 8:30 am · Post a Comment · posted by arvkoontz
Reed May, head football coach at Brownstown, recalled earlier this week, of a conversaion he had with former Seymour football coach Joe Goodman in the ealry 1990s.
The IHSAA announced it was going to add a ninth game to the schedule. “Originally, and I wish we would have went with this idea, we used to have the jamboree, and then when we added a ninth game we went with Mitchell.
“Joe called me and said ‘why don’t we play the first game.’ It was my second or third year here, and I wasn’t too fired up about that idea because we were just starting our program and Joe had been very successful, so I said ‘no’ but I wish I would have said yes.
Seymour’s contract with Franklin ran out two years ago, and the Owls picked up Cathedral last year on a one-year contract.
With Pekin Eastern joining the Mid Southern Conference this year, Browntown changed its schedule, and added Eastern and Seymour and now we come to Friday night.
“I would like it to be the first game of the year,” May said. “It’s a big rival, people would talk about it all winter, and both teams are undefeated, so that’s when I would like to play it.
“I’ve talked to Jeff (Richey, Seymour coach) about it. They open with Columbus North. Maybe in the future we’ll get it worked out that way.”
Columbus North defeated Seymour handily on all three levels, freshman, junior varsity and varsity, this season and Richey has said he wouldn’t mind seeing North go off the schedule.
This will be the seventh meeting between the Jackson County schools with Seymour winning the first six.
Richey says he doesn’t expect his team to have any trouble getting mentally prepared for the Braves.
“I told them ‘if you’re not ready to play this game, then you’re a dead man.’ This should be exciting, first because it’s homecoming, and no matter who you play they should be excited about homecoming with everything that goes on during the week at school, and the build up to the game, and even to the dance afterwards. You hope those things don’t draw away from their focus and their attention to the game.”
