Lords of the Ring

Ceremony honors team for winning state title

March 18, 2007

RENALDO STOVER
Index-Journal sports writer

Members of the 2006 Greenwood Eagles championship team pose with their state championship rings Saturday following a ring ceremony at Greenwood High School.

You sacrifice a little, you gain a lot.
That’s how Josh Norman’s poem, “Race for the ring,” ended.
The entire Greenwood Eagles football family gained a lot Saturday night during a ring ceremony at Greenwood High School.
“We appreciate what everyone honored tonight has accomplished and the way they’ve represented Greenwood in such a positive way,” Eagles coach Shell Dula said. “Our cheerleaders, trainers, managers, coaches and our players have all represented Greenwood in a positive way. It’s just like Tony Dungy said when he was on the stand receiving the Super Bowl trophy, ‘It takes everybody.’ It’s everybody working together, understanding their role and carrying it out.
Everybody is vital to the success.”
Norman’s poem, which urged teammates to “get meaner or stay mediocre,” was written in January 2006 and was just one of many events that led to the Eagles’ run to the state title.
He read the poem for the large audience that gathered to watch the Eagles receive their rings.
“This is what we worked all year for,” Norman said. “You can’t explain it until you really actually get it, and then it hits you. The poem was all about how we didn’t want to go out like some of the teams that came before us that had a lot of talent but never came together.
“I just didn’t want to fall short because this is a great group of guys that stuck together. It was just foresight on everyone’s part, and we already knew we were going to do it because we had such a strong group of guy who were willing to work hard and stay together.”
Teammate Wes Abrams also read a poem titled, “The journey is complete,” which summarized the Eagles accomplishment.
Dula told those in attendance, during his opening remarks that Eagles’ championship season began on a Saturday afternoon in November 2005 during a coaches meeting where they discussed the direction of the team.
Dula said during the ceremony that physical and mental preparation was key to the Eagles’ success.
“They wanted to keep winning because they wanted to keep practicing,” Dula said. “We acted like champions, we played like champions and tonight, we are champions.”
“It just feels great to get this ring this season,” senior Sam Chappell said. “We worked so hard to get it, and all our hard work finally paid off.”
Chappell’s thoughts were shared by many of his teammates.
“I love this feeling,” senior Jeff Hughes said. “It’s indescribable, actually. There’s just no feeling like this. I’ve been up since December 1 thinking about this.”
When you throw in the fact that 40 of the 66 members of the team did not miss a single practice, it’s no wonder the Eagles were so in-tune with each other over the course of the season.
The Eagles were still, “in tune,” after taking a look at their rings for the first time, in what Dula referred to as the, “final act of unity.”
If you had any doubts, they were quickly squashed as T.J. Baylor led the Eagles in a few gospel songs (“You don’t know” and “I’m going to take a trip”) that had almost the entire crowd tapping their feet and in some cases, singing right along.
“It feels great,” Baylor said. “I’ll have these memories for the rest of my life.”
Dula even sang a few notes of a song that no fan can deny when it comes to the 2006 Eagles, “We are the champions.”