That's all good from a football perspective, but let's look at it another way.
Walnut Ridge is a school full of kids who have had few advantages in life. Many of them come from single parent, low income rental homes maintained by indifferent and neglectful landlords. Many of them have one or two parents with criminal records and/or substance abuse issues. Many of them have spent time institutionalized in one way or another in the child welfare system. Some of them are gifted athletically and will be able to parlay that blessing into a better life. Some of them are gifted academically or artisticly and will be to rise above where they came from. However, the majority of them are poor with average or lower than average intelligence and little to no social capital who are doomed to a life of abject poverty or just getting by poverty. Many of them will be making the poor choices that lead to a life of poverty before they finish high school. Nearly none of them will be present at a week 12 playoff game to cheer on their classmates. Besides not having any way to get to the game nor the extra cash to pay the price for gas, food, parking and admission, many of them feel maybe just a tiny tinge of subconscious resentment for the players having an edge in escaping poverty. The players worked hard and put together an unbelievable undefeated season against similar opponents. Did they start lifting daily in a disciplined and well-supervised fashion in December or January in a well-equipped weight room. No. They did not. Did the captains get them all together throughout the spring to run drills and conditioning exercises. No they did not. Did any of them spend time at the local D-1 training academy. No they did not. This isn't the high school football that GCL families know and understand. It's city league ball, and a lot of the success is attributed to just extraordinary natural talent. These kids didn't have the resources to move five miles east and play for Reynoldsburg or Pickerington. But some of their friends did. These kids didn't have the academic chops or the behavior to go three miles west and play for Hartley. But some of their friends did. In week 2, they played a game 13 miles away at Watkins Memorial which was as far away and alien as Bellbrook. They played them away last season too. There aren't a lot of schools who want to play a game at Walnut Ridge. If you take an average Licking County person and dropped them off at the corner of Hamilton and Livingston with the instructions to walk a mile east to Walnut Ridge, they'd be terrified for their lives - even in broad daylight. And their field is terrible. So they've probably watched a little film on LaSalle. They probably have a sense that they don't have a chance. But they won't care. That's not a new feeling. They've felt it their whole lives. Even if they've read any of the discussion here about the inferiority of just playing a city league schedule, they won't care. They're just going to go out and play their game. Lancer mommies can worry for a few hours on Friday that their little prodigy might get beat up by some dirty thug, but on Saturday morning she can go back to fretting about girlfriends who might get pregnant, what college the kid is getting into, and whether he's had the right connections to become a corporate executive some day. If you guys outmatch them to the degree that us armchair experts think you will, then I hope you guys have a tiny feeling of a preferential option for the poor and all them lofty ideals and have the decency to ease up maybe just a little bit before it gets to a running clock. These kids have already been beaten up by life. Surely you have a couple dive plays in your repertoire. And if it gets to it, show a little self mastery and don't get chippy back.
