Unlike what was standard several presidential terms ago, the current Enterprise High School football roster doesn’t feature many players known by their names, instead of numbers, in the House of Adams, where, nonetheless, stories of their games have emerged since they dressed for their first game in seventh grade. An old sports adage is in play, “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” Happens to the best among us.
What is known here: All these teenagers represent Enterprise. Today’s words, for current Wildcats and soon-to-be Cats at Dauphin and Coppinville junior high schools, simply had to be written after former EHS center/linebacker Jimmy Carroll, JC to friends, died in a Mobile hospital, June 9, three weeks after coming home, proudly wearing his white Wildcat golf shirt, to celebrate 80th birthdays with his 1962 Enterprise classmates. In Jimmy’s three EHS years playing under Morris Higginbotham, the 1959-61 teams combined for a 2¬¬7-2-1 record and the 1960 Birmingham News State Championship, six years before the Alabama High School Athletic Association began staging playoffs.
Jimmy’s EHS classmate/teammate/friend Lee Warren drove from Montgomery for JC’s funeral June 15; two of his lifelong friends, Charlie Abernathy and your scribe, drove from here. After high school, JC went to the University of Alabama and was on the ’64 and ’65 National Champions and the ’66 undefeated Crimson Tide playing for Coach Paul Bryant. Those teams went 30-2-1.
Now, here are words going forward intended for you young men who shed blood, sweat and tears on gridirons and wherever else all competitive Enterprise sports/activities are practiced/played: No matter where you go or what you do in life, no matter how far into the future, your status with your teammates is not likely to change. In his book, ”The Missing Ring,” Keith Dunnavant wrote: “ ..
. Alabama football was a brotherhood, and oneness was not just some buzzword; it was a way of life. If a teammate slipped, you helped him up, partially out of a sense of obligation, but also out of a strong bond, reinforced during all those moments of shared sacrifice .
..” You Enterprise young’uns should believe that’s spot-on here, too, and stay true to your team and yourself until graduation won’t have to explain yourselves to teammates .
.. ever! Dunnavant wrote, “.
.. If you really want to understand a football team, or any group of competitive individuals, follow the heartbreak.
Follow the disappointment. Follow the tears ..
.” Valor under fire is priceless. Decades from now, even if you don’t stay in close touch, that feeling of comradery will either remain as it is now or, more likely, grow stronger.
You’ll be in each other’s weddings, bury parents and grow older together. You’ll attend class reunions or be missed if you don’t; your athletic stories will grow better and better, like fine, aging wine. Some of you will play college football like about 300 Wildcats before you and you’ll make more lifelong brothers, be in each other’s weddings, celebrate births of children/grandchildren, bury parents and grow older together.
You’ll go to teammates’ funerals. So, 2024 Cats, why did some old geezer you don’t know write these words today? At Jimmy’s service were Alabama teammates, who years ago began having annual golf outings in Destin, 11 guys who were on this year’s trip the day JC died, who’d sadly returned to homes in several Southern states. To a man, those Tidesmen were in Mobile’s Government Street Presbyterian Church the following Saturday, 58 years after taking their final collegiate snap together.
One of them, another Wildcat, Robert Higginbotham, delivered one of three eulogies. Familiar UA names, JC’s teammates Ken Stabler, Ray Perkins, Richard Cole, Conrad Fowler, Cecil Dowdy, Paul Crane and a few others weren’t at Jimmy’s funeral. But he’d been at theirs.
The ’66 Alabama brothers are why Dunnavant wrote “The Missing Ring.” Jimmy was the team’s starting center. Hmmm.
Now, EHS guys, honor yourselves/your parents/your school/your town/your coaches; live/play this season to its fullest; enjoy being there for each other and as true Wildcats have always done, take no prisoners. You’ll never get a second chance at the 2024 season. Play these mostly difficult teams as they come: Andalusia, Pike Road, Dothan, Auburn, Central, Carver, Opelika, J.
A.G., Smiths Station and Choctawhatchee.
Hmmm. Tomorrow night, the Cats open this season in Andalusia’s newly-remodeled Memorial Stadium in the 45th meeting between the Cats and Bulldogs in a series dating to 1921. Enterprise has scored 692 points against Andalusia’s 440 and holds a 26-16-2 record in the series.
The rivalry has been dormant since 1976, with Andalusia riding a two-game winning streak (1975-76). Enterprise’s last win was a 20-7, homecoming beauty in 1967, your scribe’s senior year. Guess who Enterprise’s starting quarterback was.
Joe Bynum was our guy; your scribe played ...
saxophone in the band. OK. You 2024 Wildcats, win as many games as you can; hold your head high; you’re already winners and part of Wildcat lore dating back to 1913.
Hmmm. Might as well go on and say it, “Win one for JC.” You see, Wildcats are forever.
If you can’t get to Andalusia, tune in the game on nfhsnetwork.com . Go Cats .
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