On Friday nights in the fall, the crowd at Buckeye Stadium in Gilmer can outnumber the population of the town.

Neighbors greet each other on their way to reserved seats. Little girls wear orange and black ribbons in their hair, and little boys toss footballs and tackle each other on the hill that overlooks the field.

It’s a familiar scene across East Texas. The News-Journal chose to spend a couple of Fridays with Gilmer fans, but we could have gone to almost any small town in the area, from Kilgore to Daingerfield to Tatum – the self-described city of champions.

Before a big game, the anticipation builds for days, said Gilmer Mayor Buck Cross.

“It gives the townspeople something to do, somewhere to go and something to brag about,” he said.

Gilmer residents have been crazy about their Buckeyes ever since Gilmer High School alumnus Jeff Traylor took over the head coaching job in 2000 and started winning district titles.

A state championship in 2004 and a run to the title game a year ago didn’t hurt.

People who want reserved seats at home games can expect to wait at least 20 years, Traylor said.

“People get so mad because they’ve been on the waiting list forever, it seems like, and nobody ever gives their seats up,” he said. “When they die we’ve been told they leave their seats in their will for the next of kin.”

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The honorary grandmas

Mary Jo Dean made a special batch of her spicy pecans before the Aug. 28 Jasper game.

Some she snuck into the stands to share with her friend, Lena Childress, and other Buckeyes supporters. The rest she planned to give to head coach Jeff Traylor and his assistants.

“I’ve always loved football, and Coach Traylor is sort of like my grandchild,” Dean said. “I just love him.”

She and Childress are in their 70s. They say they often arrive to games a couple of hours before they start. That way, they can visit with their friends – and ensure they get their usual seats on the 50-yard line.

“Coach knows where we sit,” Childress said. “He always looks for us.”

During the playoffs, Traylor said, the pair fixes a daily feast for the coaching staff. Among the favorites is Dean’s Buckeye dressing, with Cajun sausage and jalapenos.

“I gain about 20 pounds during the playoffs,” Traylor said. “They cook for us every day. It’s amazing.”

The grandmothers speak reverently of Traylor.

“We’re a winning team, and you know why? Because he’s such a good Christian coach and instills in them Christian values,” Childress said. “The secret of the football team is to make them believe in themselves and believe in God.”

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Talking to mom

During Zack Jones’ junior year, his mother, Annie, was too sick to come to his games. She had a heart condition, so she watched them the next morning on the local cable channel.

“One night, I came home from the Mabank game, and I thought she was asleep,” said Jones, now a senior. “The next day, she was still in the same position. When I touched her, her body was stiff and cold.”

He tried to quit the team.

“I’ve got low self-confidence, and at the time I almost gave up, but Coach wouldn’t let me. He helped me,” he said. “That was pretty tough on me, and I got off track. I’m still trying to get back on track.”

In his senior season, the speedy Jones splits time as a wide receiver and defensive back. He lives with his aunt.

“Now that my mom is gone, I’ve got to lift myself up. It’s kind of hard for me, but I know she’s watching over me,” he said. “I pray before games. I go to the graveyard and talk to her. I just tell her to protect me, to help me have a great game and to help my teammates.”

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Not as enamored

As the crowds began to buzz before the first pep rally of the year, a group of students separated themselves from the excitement.

They were members of the Junior ROTC, and they slumped against the wall in the visitors’ bleachers, across the gym from everyone else.

“We think the school focuses too much on football and not enough on anything else,” said Herbert Hobgood, a color guard commander and Gilmer senior. “They spent over a million on the field house, but our bathrooms are trash. You don’t hear about anything else but football, and that’s it.”

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The preacher in the stands

With the voice of a man who delivers sermons on Sundays, the Rev. Richard Tennison shouted to no one in particular:

– “Come on, that wide receiver didn’t block for him. Got three yards, though. Do it again! Do it again!”

– “That’s a first down!”

– “They can’t stop us, and we stopping them!”

Watching his team demolish Jasper, Tennison said he lives in Big Sandy and preaches in Kilgore. The 1973 graduate of Gilmer High School has missed only two games since 2003.

“Football wasn’t as big in my day, because we didn’t do a whole lot of winning back then,” he said. “We didn’t have the pride the kids have today. Once we started winning, the winning kept going, and it breeds. Even the little elementary kids want to win.”

Tennison said athletes move to Gilmer from other communities so they can be a part of the winning tradition.

“Hoo, Big Sandy is missing him!” Tennison yelled as a player he knew broke for a big run.

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Parents at a pep rally

Dozens of Gilmer residents turn out for Friday afternoon pep rallies. One of them is Will Bullock, who took off early from his welding job to meet his wife, Pam, at the first rally of the season.

He said growing up in a small town in southern Louisiana couldn’t prepare him for Buckeye fever.

“Oh yeah, it’s different,” he said. “The whole town is involved in Gilmer football. It’s not just a few people. It’s everybody.”

Added Pam, “Even at practice, a lot of people are there just watching the practice.”

Their daughter is a cheerleader, and their son plays in the band.

“It’s exciting to watch the team, whether it’s a new game or a new player,” he said. “It seems like the more popular they are, the better they are.”

* * *

The ball boys

Junior high boys in orange and black dart among the high school players on the sidelines. They fetch footballs and deliver water to the older boys coming off the field.

“They treat me pretty good,” said Cory Wilson, a seventh-grader. “When I hand them a water bottle they don’t just throw it back at me. They hand it to me and say thank you.”

Slaton Teague, a sixth-grader, moved to Gilmer this summer from nearby Harmony. His favorite player is Zack Jones, the receiver and defensive back. Does Slaton want to play for the Buckeyes someday?

“I sure do,” he said. “I want to lead ’em to state.”

* * *

The glory days

Jeremy Childress sat with his grandmother, Lena Childress, as he watched the game and reminisced about his experience on the 2004 team that won it all.

“Winning the state championship was probably one of the greatest experiences of my life,” he said. “It was very exciting and almost had an electric feeling going into the stadium. It was the culmination of a whole season.

“And we worked hard. It didn’t come easy. Nothing fell in our laps.”

After graduating high school in 2005, Childress played a semester of college ball at Austin College in Sherman. It was tough juggling football practice and pre-med classes, he said, and now he studies corrosion technology at Kilgore College.

“I learned a whole bunch of life lessons from football,” he said.

“Fight through adversity, learn how to keep your head up, learn how to always show respect no matter what, not to get frustrated by things you can’t control, and learn how to change the stuff you can.”

He and his grandmother have always been close, and they take care of each other, he said. They never miss a game.

“I talk to people from other schools who don’t have any pride in their school, but I’m proud of my team,” he said. “I wear Buckeye shirts all the time.”

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Loving mother, diehard fan

Cheering in the stands, Shelia Godfrey wore two buttons pinned to her orange T-shirt – one for her son and one for her nephew, who both play on the team.

Godfrey said she and other fans charter four buses to go to and from playoff games.

“It keeps our kids occupied. It’s an East Texas sport, and we have so many blessed and talented kids. We have to support our children,” she said. “I’m a diehard orange-and-black fan. You’ve just got to support the Buckeyes.”

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A starter, two surgeries later

The first time he hurt his left knee, Jared Harborth was playing scout team running back at the start of his eighth-grade season.

“I was running the ball, and I got hit,” he said. “My leg was planted and my body twisted, and my knee twisted with it.”

A few years later, he hurt his knee again when trying to recover a fumble against White Oak.

“I sat out the next week, then finished out the next two games,” he said. “I didn’t think too much about it until the offseason. During one of the lifts, my knee went out on me. My meniscus was beyond repair, so the doctor just took it out.”

A senior right tackle, Harborth hopes to study computer science next year at Texas A&M. He said his knee limits his weight training.

“Every now and then it starts to hurt for a day or two, but I keep playing through the pain and working hard,” he said.

“I have to improvise a little, but here I am, senior season, starting on the offensive line. I’m not as strong as everybody else, but I’m doing the best I can.”

* * *

The team is ‘everything’

What do the Buckeyes mean to the Gilmer community?

“Everything,” answers Tommy Bledsoe, the Gilmer Country Club manager.

“When football season starts, on Friday nights everybody goes to a ball game,” he said. “Success breeds success. They’ve had a good run.”

Back in the 1950s, Bledsoe was a right guard for the Buckeyes.

“We won about as many as we lost, I guess,” he said.

* * *

Dave Campbell offers his two cents

Dave Campbell, editor-in-chief of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine, talks about the sport in Texas:

A Texas passion: “Football is a passion in Texas, and that goes for whether it’s six-man football or the BCS brand of college football. Texans really can’t seem to get enough of football, and I think that’s particularly true in high school.”

Everybody goes: “It’s just something everyone can rally around, particularly in the fall. Everybody knows the kids, knows their parents, and everybody goes to the games. It’s more than an old saying: ‘The last one out of town on a Friday night, turn out the lights.’ ”

Divided allegiances: “When a town starts getting split up into various high schools, then of course the town’s affection is split up and their allegiance is split up. But in one-high school towns, everybody pulls for the school.”

Winning streaks: “I don’t see how it could get more popular. Of course, it’s more popular when teams and towns are on winning streaks or have really good teams. I think still, they know the kids, they know the parents, and they really rally around those. They’re their own, and they rally around them.”

Losing streaks: “If there’s a long, long losing streak, a long period of the team just not doing well, people do lose interest, and they take up other interests or they get wrapped up in the Cowboys or maybe a college team. Still, when the hometown team does very well, even if it has a losing streak and suddenly it’s successful, people come together and they really back a team and they marvel at their success.”

Other sports: “I think basketball can reach that fervor, especially if that town has a reputation and a tradition for being a powerhouse, but really football is still king in Texas, and Texans regard it with a passion you don’t see duplicated in other sports or other levels.”

Dave Campbell, 83, founded Texas Football magazine in 1960 in Waco. He is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

* * *

Social and cultural phenomenon

John Singer, assistant professor, Texas A&M division of sports management:

Reliving the glory days: “In small towns, a lot of affiliation is rooted in nostalgia. They’re former players themselves, whether a father, a local star who back in his day was the man, and is now looking back and living vicariously through the young phenoms coming through now. In many ways, their social identities are tied to their former glory days and what the program looks like in the here and now.”

Evolution of sports involvement: “Through the physical act of sport, we become not only physically involved and invested but also emotionally involved. Once we reach a plateau in our playing experience, we transition to fanship, or spectator behavior.”

When to jump on the bandwagon: “It’s called ‘basking in reflected glory’: When your team wins, you take ownership. ‘We won. We’re going to the state championship.’ The flip side of the concept is ‘cutting off reflected failure.’ So when a team lost, ‘They suck, they’re awful.’ It’s kind of hypocritical in many ways. When a team is high and mighty, you want to be affiliated with a winner. It makes you a winner. When affiliated with a team that’s losing or failing, then in some cases you cut off reflected failure. Certainly you have those die-hard fans with the team through thick and thin, but I think a lot of people do that based on the success of the team.”

Sport as distraction: “In some ways, it acts as an opiate or drug. It takes people away from reality. The word ‘sport’ itself has a Latin root, esporto, to carry away. In many ways people do get carried away with their fantasies. I see guys in their 40s and 50s still talking about what they did in the ’70s and what they could still do at their advanced age. It’s really hilarious to me. Put in the proper perspective, it could have some debilitating influence on individuals.”

Like a religion: “Sport is so powerful and pervasive in societies, and in particular communities, it is almost like a way of life. It’s a religion in ways. We see movies like ‘Friday Night Lights’ and ‘Varsity Blues,’ and a lot of it is sensationalized for entertainment values, but in many regards that’s not exaggerated. It’s real.”

Bridging race: “A lot of people would argue that sport is a way to bring race relations closer together. When you’re in the stands, you’re not thinking about color, you’re thinking about a common bond. When you’re on the field or in the locker room, you’re not thinking about the color of your teammates’ skin, you’re thinking about bonding with that individual to win games and win championships.” On the flip side, “many of the same issues you see in a lot of society are still omnipresent in sport. Sport is a microcosm of society.”

Reflecting American values: “Competition and achievement are values that permeate American society. In many ways, these values have a very profound impact on what we see in sport, the attitudes and emotions. Football as a sport is based on violence, but it’s also based on strategy and trying to outthink, outwit and dominate or overpower your opponent. What does that say? That’s something to really think about.”

John Singer studies the sociology of sports and other sports management issues at Texas A&M University.

* * *

Athletic field house

The glimmering new field house is a magnificent structure, evidence that Gilmer puts its money where its mouth is.

Construction: Completed in spring 2007

Cost: $2.3 million ($1.85 million for the building and parking lot, plus $450,000 to redirect a creek; financed by bonds and savings)

Size: 16,000 square feet

About the weight room: Flat-screen TVs that show game highlights, music videos and whatever else “gets (players) pumped up,” one of the coaches said, are mounted to the rear wall behind shiny orange-and-black weight stations. On the other wall, wide glass windows reveal a panoramic, end-zone view of Buckeye Stadium.

Other rooms: Three locker rooms outfitted with digital projectors to analyze game film; offices for the head coach, athletic secretary, offensive coaching staff and defensive coaching staff; a large area for training and rehabilitation; and a laundry and storage room.

* * *

About the Buckeyes

School colors: Black, orange and white
District: 17-3A
High school enrollment: About 700
Football players: 145
State champion: 2004
State runner-up: 1981, 2007

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Praise from Jake Shaw’s Texas Football blog:

9/19/08 Blog A few weeks back, a reporter from the Longview News-Journal, writing a story about “small-town football,” called me requesting an interview with Dave Campbell.

This morning, the reporter sent the link to the story. I’ll be honest, the “small- town” theme has been covered as well as any presidential election. From “Friday Night Lights” (the book, movie and TV show) to local columns in weekly papers — I even wrote one a couple years back for American Profile magazine — high school football in Texas has been glorified (and even sometimes vilified) too many times to count.

That’s what makes this story by Wes Ferguson about football in Gilmer all the more impressive. Segmented by varying perspectives from the locals, we hear from the team’s “grandma,” an aging woman known as much for her 50-yard line seats as for her pregame cuisine weekly prepared for Gilmer coaches. The grandma espouses “the Christian values” instilled in the team by head coach Jeff Traylor.

On the opposite end is the ROTC, whose members lament the millions spent on Gilmer’s stadium while their “bathrooms are trash.”

If you have time today, make sure to give that story a read. It may focus on Gilmer, but it’s just as much about your team as it is theirs.