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When I started "A Minute With Coach Riggs", I decided to write what was on my mind and in my heart. This has been on my mind and my heart for several days. So you will have to forgive me as I write about my neighbors and my family.
I moved to 109 James Street in March of 1990. I didn't know it was a special street...I was just buying a house for my family. There have been some great areas in Brewton for producing football players. West End, the bottom....I knew about all of them. What I didn't know was this small street would be like a gushing oil field, producing player after player. Many of them would be managers on our team as youngsters and then later T.R. Miller Tigers. I got to watch them grow up and then I got to coach them.
James Perry was the first and he played on our 2002 3A State Championship team as a cornerback. Tyler Shehan was too slow to play they said. But he had this incredible character and work ethic. Against Abbeville in 2004 he hit a guy so hard the guy's helmet flew off. My son Mikel was a wide receiver and defensive back who played with great will and with great spirit. It was a joy to coach him. His buddy next door was Jordan Cauley and they were in the same grade. Jordan always had great hand skills but was a little chubby in middle school and in the 8th grade he played nose guard. I remember asking Mikel at the dinner table one night what postiion he thought Jordan ought to play. He just stared at me for a minute. "I think he needs to be a QB," Mikel said. I agreed. He became one of the most accurate and productive QBs we ever had. He had ice water in his veins when the pressure was on. Tanner Shehan was a wide receiver. I remember Tanner for two things. As a junior I put him in at RB against Jay when we got a big lead so that we wouldn't score again. He ran about 60 yards for a TD and I didn't know he could run that fast. And the next year he caught the long, winning TD pass to upset #1 Thomasville in the last seconds of the game. Ice water in his veins. Nick Moore lived down the street and last year as a senior he played as hard as I can remember a kid playing at noseguard. He was voted team captain by his teammates simply because his play was a great example to everyone else.
There is only one left and it is his senior season. He has lived with football his whole life for there was no way he could escape it. He was a great manager and ball boy ( his favorite play was always the flea flicker and he use to beg me to run it.) By the time he was in the fourth grade he could video practice like a pro. From the time he was in kindergarten he wore all kinds of football jerseys but the Miller jersey was his favorite. He started playing football in the 7th grade and quickly became the middle school QB. Before his 8th grade year he tore the ligament in his elbow throwing. They put a screw in it and he played QB less than two months later. At the end of his 8th grade season, I brought him over to practice with our varsity. He broke his thumb and stayed in a cast about six weeks. When John Mathieu got injured the next fall, he was thrust into the starting QB job as a freshman. Atmore and Jackson had big defensive ends that we couldn't block very well and he took a pretty good beating. But he always got up. He has played QB ever since and there have been some good times and some heartaches. It is part of the game and he understands that.
It has been a disappointing beginning to the 2010 season. We lost the first game in overtime and he broke his thumb. He was scheduled to have surgery but he put it off to play one more game. With a splint on he could still take a snap. Last Friday night he played his heart out but we fell short again. After suffering a concussion last year he had strict orders to get down or get out of bounds. He tried.... he really did. But it was 3rd and long and we were behind. He took off down the far sideline and instead of going out of bounds he turned up and waded through tacklers for one of the biggest gains of the night. They tackled him near our sideline once and you could see the pain on his face. "Are you all right?" I asked. He looked at me but didn't say a word. He went to the line of scrimmage to call the next play. James Street ice water.....
When the final pass fell incomplete and the game was over, I could see the pain in his eyes. Not from his hand but from the loss of the game. I told him that I thought it was one of the best games he had played but it didn't console him much. He had surgery on Tuesday. He will play again. There will be some better times to enjoy victories with his teammates and maybe some more heartache. But I believe he will savor every second he has left, appreciative of the time God has given him to play this great game that he couldn't avoid.
There have been a lot of great quarterbacks at T.R. Miller. Some were great leaders and some were great runners. Some were skilled passers with great touch on the ball and some were just plain tough. But I believe that our #10 is the most courageous of all of them. What he has endured to be the quarterback at Miller very few people can understand.
As parents we often worry about the future of our children. But after last Friday night I will worry no more. I know it is just a football game ....but if he can handle that, he can handle whatever life has in store for him in the future.
The James Street crew is not done yet.
I Samuel 16:7 The Lord does not look at the things that man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.
