by Matt Wright
Justin Cruse, head football coach for Ripley High School, drove to Lakeland to watch his middle school team play Saturday afternoon. As he stood on the Ripley sideline he said out loud “this is a private school right?” “No sir,” I said, “it’s a public school.” Staring off at the big crowd on the home side of the football stadium and the school construction going on behind it, he said, “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
While football games were played Saturday afternoon on the Lakeland Prep campus, 4 of them in fact (youth rec games and middle school games), the LPS homecoming was really more than just football, it was about a vision coming together and a community celebrating as a family. How proud is the community of what’s been achieved in such a short time? Mr. Jay Dorning, a Lakeland resident and retired police officer came to watch the games. Mr. Dorning has no children in the Lakeland School System, but nevertheless he wanted Ripley to feel welcome on the Lakeland Prep campus. So Mr. Dorning went to the concession stand and bought Gatorades for every Ripley player so they would have something to drink after the game. The Ripley Middle School football coaches stopped what they were doing during the game just to go shake his hand and say thank you.
Of course football was also important for the Lions who dominated both the Ripley Middle School JV and Varsity football teams. Arguably the best football team in its short history, the Lions are 4-0 on the season. The JV defeated Ripley 38-8 while the varsity won 48-0. That’s promising since the current middle school team will be the high school varsity team looking ahead. Next year the school will transition to high school playing a freshman football schedule and will move up from there as grades are added to the high school campus.
“I was really proud of the way our guys played,” Head Coach Tyler White said. “We challenged them all week to come out focused and get off to a fast start. It can be easy to get distracted during homecoming week, especially when you’re playing at home for the first time in front of that many people, but they responded very well.” Coach White finished by saying “You don’t get that kind of community support at many places. I felt like I was back on the sidelines on a Friday night.”
Football on Friday nights will be in Lakeland soon enough and apparently they’re going to be pretty special.
