the former lamar county quarterback who set the state passing record in 1977 was mentioned in an ajc article over the weekend.
hinson came up after his record was almost broken by henry county's quarterback.
hinson's father was a principal here. i believe he died some years back.
where is ron hinson now?
who were the wide receivers on that team?
how long do you think the record will stand? what was the record setting qb's team's record for the season?
who was the opposing team in the record game?
other stars on the team?
who was the coach?
have at it!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
The game was against Troup County in 1977. Ron Hinson passed for 524 yards. You can find this by going to the below link. Look under State Records on the left. Also, Someone on a seperate blog said something about no one ever had or was going to make it to the NFL or Pros from Lamar County. Just a little tidbit, Someone has. Craig Ogletree play in the NFL for the Cinncinatti Bengals in 1990.
Georgia High School Football Historians Association. Recording the History of Georgia Football. GHSFHA.org
It was a 48-28 win over Troup in the season finale'. The Trojans finished a disappointing 6-4 that year. Disappointing in that they started the season ranked in the Class A top ten and won their first two games but then lost a shocker at Taylor County. The wheels came off after that. Catching passes from Hinson on that record breaking night were Ronnie Barkley, Jonathan Crawford and Mike McGee. Blocking for him were Mark Fink, Carlton Smith, Alfonzo Banks, Richard Buchanan, Danny Turner and your truly. Some other players included James Harris, Blake Hickman, Wilbur Brown and Red Jackson who intercepted a pass and ran it back for a touchdown. None of us knew, for some time later, that Ronnie had set a record that night. Many didn't know, until the kid from Henry County nearly broke it two weeks ago, that the record still stood. 30 years. Pretty cool.
Its exciting that the Trojans and Hinson are in the record book with 524 yards passing......looks like the today trojans are going to set a record for getting shut out every week.
Watching Red Jackson rumble was a thing of beauty. If my memory serves me correctly, we had another long one called back on a penalty.
Lamar County coaches were Kenneth Upton (head coach) assisted by Brent Norris, Terry Lester and the rock of our staff....Coach Oscar Wimberly who incidentally must have eyes in the back of his head. He always knew what we were up to and where we'd been.
At the time, Hinson's 524 yards ranked 4th all time in national high school history. Now I don't belive he is even in the top 20.
The 524 yards just did put us over 2K with 2052 for the year. I was “Back of the Week” three times that year, against Troup and Jackson and Brookstone. We threw for 296 (give or take 2 or 3 yards) against Jackson and Willie Ward (Jackson HS RB and 1st team AS) rushed for well over 200 (in the 240‘s I think). Each game was anything but a blowout. Troup Co. had over 400 yards of total offence and I threw 3 or 4 INTs. to go with 6 TDs. The first was a 50+ yrd prayer that Ronnie Barkley (also 1st team All-St.) caught off his shoelaces at the goal line. Against Jackson, he literally reached over the DB and actually wrestled the ball away from him in the back of the end zone on the first pass of the night. Several others in the Troup game were 15-20 yrd throws that got turned into 50+ yrd Tds. Troup was coached by “DUSTY” MILLS and JIMMY HIGHTOWER, I’m not sure who worked for who. Coach Hightower won a championship or two with Americus and coached men like Dan Reeves and Chan Gaily. In frustration, they rushed three and covered with eight for the better part of the night when we hit a couple of big plays early on. I later played for Coach Hightower at Ga. South Western and he related to me his frustration, coaching against us that night. Coach Hightower was a good man.
Anyhow, I think we were the first to cross the 2K mark in the regular season. If not, then we were the first to do it with only six passing plays; 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, and, of course 66. We had a three step package but we rarely used it. 99% of the time we went with a seven step drop, none of that pansy-@ss 5 step crap. I was 12-15 yards deep in the pocket and all of our primary routes were broken at 15 yards. Wow. I can’t believe we did that! Our OC was a disciple of Bill Peterson at FSU in the late 60’s, he felt that rushing the ball was a blasphemy and would rather throw a 15 yrd out-route on 4th and 2 than to ever stoop to the barbarous running game.
The third “Back of the Week” award that we received was for the Brookstone game. We threw for 280+ yards and 3 TDs and, you’ll love this, Brookstone was up 20-6 at halftime! Our coaches blasted us at halftime. They let us have it; “You’re letting’ a bunch of WHITE BOYS kick your @ss out there!”, “A bunch of SLOW WHITE BOYS!” The final score was 50-27. We scored 44 points in the second half! Ronnie Barkley caught a 60+ yrd go route on the 1st play of the half (We practiced go-routes like everyone else practiced puttin’ on their uniforms). I swear, the ball went so far and so high that the poor little white DB from Brookstone looked like a buzzard circling’ road-kill. He got so turned ‘round that he fell flat on the ground. The very next series, Barkley took a sweep play (blasphemy, I know) 80 yards, out-running everyone down the sideline doin’ the Walter Payton “high-step” before anyone knew who “Sweetness” was. To this day I have never seen a more gazelle-like pure sprinter than Ronnie Barkley. He was poetry, the most beautiful running form I’ve ever seen, and I saw his brother Bobby and Gary Price when I was a freshmen. The year before they had finished 1st and 2nd in the “Class A” 100 yard dash. Against Mary Persons that year, Price ran the first two kickoffs back for scores. After that, Pitts had’em lay the ball on the ground without the tee and squib the damn thing. I don’t know if you’ve ever talked with anyone who played for Dan Pitts but you should start an entire category devoted solely to stories of that man from the men who played for him. I can tell you this, the sole reason that I was a 1st team All-State selection in 1978 was because Dan Pitts stood up and voted for me. We finished 3-7 that year and Mary Persons scored almost 50 point to our two, maybe 3 TD’s, I was terrible. However, in the three years that I competed against Dan Pitts’ teams, after the game, he always made sure that he shook my hand, put his other hand on my shoulder and said a kind word or two. We only managed 1800+ yards passing that year.
If I could go back and change anything, I'd want, more than anything else, to be a better teammate and friend to the guys I was so privileged to play with. We could have accomplished so much more if I hadn't been so naive and immature.
One final note. I’ve been disabled for the last 4 and ½ years. My body is simply deteriorating and I have a hard time doing the most simple tasks. Severe arthritis and bipolar disorder have combined to put me on the DL for good. I can’t run or throw anymore and I suffer from severe manic depression. I found out from one of my doctors that a shoulder injury which I’d suffered playing baseball my junior year had actually caused a muscle tear in my shoulder. The tear got progressively worse from that point on. I can’t lift my right arm above my shoulder anymore w/out pain and I’d be hard-pressed to throw a NERF ball to my two 7 year old son’s. My arm strength was an issue with me everywhere I went after graduation. I simply couldn’t throw with any consistency after that and it took about 25 years for me to finally understand why.
Take care,
-Ron
Post a Comment