Preview: Graham G-Men
A G-Whiz Team
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By ANDY MENDLOWITZ
News-Record Sports Writer
Its nickname is the G-Men, but it might as well be the G-Force.
The Graham High School football team dizzies opponents and dazzles fans with a
high-powered, confusing offense that averages 44 points a game.
"They can run and throw it," said Greeneville (Tenn.) coach Mike
Zeller, whose playoff-bound team lost to Graham 40-7 this season. "What
they did to us is they didn’t have a huddle. They went no-huddle and they’d
line up in a wish-bone, two tight; then the next play, they’ll come out in a
shot gun."
Graham (12-1) used its varied offense to capture the Southwest District and
Region IV championships. At 4 p.m. Saturday, the G-Men will take aim at
Harrisonburg (10-3) in the Division 3 title game at Lynchburg University.
Winning is not novel for the Bluefield school, located less than a mile from the
West Virginia border, near the coal mines of southwest Virginia. With 5,000
people, Bluefield takes up only 8.3 square miles of space, but bills itself as
"Virginia’s Tallest Town" – its highest point being 3,800 feet.
The G-Men soar pretty high, too. Glynn Carlock, 64, has averaged eight wins a
season in his 28 years as head coach at Graham
HHS coach Tim Sarver knows that tradition and community support first-hand. He
starred at running back for the rival Bluefield (W.Va.) Beavers in the early
1960s. Sarver and his buddies would cruise the two area drive-throughs and get
five hot dogs for a buck. Players were treated as celebrities.
"I never played a Beaver-Graham game before less than 10,000 people,"
Sarver recalled this week. "It was big-time football. You were well-known,
from the police to the superintendent of schools, the mayor, the city council,
business leaders -- everybody really took a part in the program.
"... It was nothing for the chief of police or the mayor to come by and say
‘Hello, hey, great game guys.’ You don’t find many communities that have
that kind of support."
In Sarver’s senior season in 1962, both Bluefield teams won state titles –
with the West Virginia school beating its Virginia neighbor in the
regular-season bout.
Carlock became an assistant at Bluefield the next fall, and 10 seasons later
took over as head coach at Graham. He coached Harrisonburg City Councilman Larry
Rogers, who starred on the offensive and defensive lines in the early 1970s.
Rogers also played at James Madison University and his son, Raphael, is a
sophomore defensive tackle at HHS.
The G-Men’s success continued with state titles in 1989 and 1995. Even in an
age of video games and the Internet, Graham draws about 5,000 fans a game.
Harrisonburg, a bigger town with more diversions, averages about 1,500.
"We don’t have a whole lot to do," Carlock said. "We only got a
Hardees and a four-lane road in here about eight to 10 years ago. It’s a very
rich tradition in football. Very rich. It’s a big thing for 10 to 12 weeks a
year; it’s really a big thing. … Our school and the whole community take a
lot of pride in it. It’s kind of like the center of the whole community."
The tradition might explain Graham’s success, despite it size. The G-Men
qualified for Group A based on school enrollment, but petitioned the Virginia
High School League to play in Group AA because it made travel easier. The VHSL
uses enrollment from grades 10 through 12 to determine classifications. Graham
has 405 students in those grades, making it the second smallest Division 3
school; Harrisonburg has 859 .
One thing that has changed – along with the price of hot dogs – is
Graham’s offense. Carlock this year implemented a spread attack that utilizes
four or five wide receivers to complement the team’s traditional running
attack.
"I think our fans are more amazed than anybody else because we probably
haven’t thrown the football 170 times in 27 years," Carlock said.
When Graham won the state title in 1995, Carlock said the team threw four times
in 14 games for 44 yards. Not this season. Not after Carlock and the coaches,
including his son Glynn Jr., evaluated the players in the summer and saw the
potential for a potent passing game.
The G-Men threw for nearly 2,000 yards and rushed for 3,840 this fall. Junior
quarterback H.T. Matthews leads the attack with 1,938 passing yards (92 of 168)
and 27 touchdown passes. He’s thrown just six interceptions and been sacked
only four times behind a line that averages 255 pounds.
Senior running back/receiver Paco Jones has rushed for 1,616 yards and 12
touchdowns and has 300 receiving yards and three touchdowns. Sophomore receiver
Ahmad Bradshaw has 804 receiving yards and nine TDs on 33 catches; senior Reed
Oakes has 600 receiving yards and eight touchdowns on 25 catches; and senior
Ryan French has 158 yards and three scores on eight catches.
Tradition, fans, touchdowns galore and cheap hotdogs. It’s hard to beat that
combination.