Getting in the car on Saturday morning, I noticed I was kind of excited. While I don’t have a fish in the school, so to speak, or any personal ties to the Hoggard football team, and wasn’t looking forward to eight hours of driving, I can’t deny that I felt like it was a special day.
The anticipation and excitement of a local team playing for the state championship was infectuous. Hoggard Athletic Director Sheila Boles said, “Students, parents, the faculty…the community has been brought together by this whole thing.” And now it was game day.
Cruising west on I-40, I reverted back to my youth. As a kid, I would sit in the car on the long ride off Cape Cod, and peer into every other car wondering, “Are they going to Fenway, too?” I’d see if they had a Red Sox hat on, and regardless, I thought everyone was headed to the ball game. It made it more exciting that way.
But on this ride, I didn’t have to do much peering. “Uh-huh, Hoggard bumper sticker, they’re going to the game,” I thought to myself. Two minutes later, “Is that Carolina? No, similar colors, but it is a Hoggard team flag out the window. Yeah, they’re ready.” A short while later I passed a few buses surrounded by cars with car paint that read something like - Hoggard Vikings #1. And when I pulled into Smithfields for lunch, I wasn’t sure if I was in Burlington or Wilmington with the number of Viking fans getting their barbecue on in there.
Arriving at the game, I pulled into the parking lot and saw some Hoggard tailgaters. That’s when the excitement level went to phase two, but when you enter a stadium like that at Wake Forest and everything is so big, phase three hits as hard and fast as a Viking linebacker. As I walked through the press gate and onto the field, I looked for Toto to tell him we weren’t in Kansas anymore.
It wasn’t just another game. It wasn’t Friday night and it certainly wasn’t Hoggard Stadium. Field turf, big replay screen and a press box that seemed to reach into the clouds. Oh, and most importantly, it was for the State Championship.
While Hoggard never trailed, there was a time in the middle of the third quarter, when it appeared Mt. Tabor would tie the score at seven. With their raucous crowd behind them, the Spartans were about to seize the momentum and I thought, “Well, it has been one heck of a season anyway.”
But more than any other word, respond, characterized the Vikings’ defense this year. And respond they did, forcing and recovering a Mt. Tabor fumble in the end zone as they were about to score. But, next thing you know, the Hoggard offense scores, 14-0 becomes 21-0, 21-0 becomes 28-0, welcome to phase four. Now excitement has company, and she goes by the name joy.
When you get to cover a team all year and see the hard work, determination and progress that they have made, and they wind up winning the State Championship, you can appreciated the smiles and hugs and realize they are well deserved.
Feel good stories generally make me feel great, but I can only wonder how it must have felt for the Braswells and company to raise that championship trophy high above their heads Saturday, as day turned to night, at BB&T field.
The Vikings held their post-game press conference, ate some pizza in the locker room and headed home to Wilmington with their mission accomplished. However, the end was “bitter-sweet,” as Viking lineman Jonathan Cooper said. You don’t want the ride to end when you are having the time of your life.
As I drove home, I found myself wishing Hoggard could play the winner of the 4AA match-up, played after the 4A game, between perennial power Charlotte Independence, led by their legendary, and now somewhat infamous Head Coach, Tommy Knotts who Scott Braswell coached with before coming to Wilmington, and New Bern, who Hoggard throttled earlier in the year. The story lines would be compelling from a journalist’s stand point, but this thought came to me as a fan. Any chance of one more game? Oh, well, at least New Bern wound up winning, and Hoggard can gain satisfaction that not only did they win the 4A Championship, but the beat the team that won the 4AA title and finished the season ranked #1 in the NC Poll.
For Cooper and kicker Casey Barth, they will play one more game, the North Carolina Shrine Bowl, but for the Vikings, the season is over. Their memories of the 2007 State Championship season have begun, and won’t soon fade away. If ever.

- Jesse Jones