This summer I did some interviewing with football coaches in Fairfield County. That is its own bit that can be discussed further at length, as in all of the fun
I had doing it, at its own time within its own space.
One of the programs that I did was Amanda-Clearcreek. There wasn't an experience or interview I did that gripped me the way that A-C did. That level of power, connecting the soul and the mind, that was every bit as cathartic as it was provocative.
In all the right ways.
Some of the interviews were over-the-phone, or video conference. AC was in-person.
As I drove down, I heavily considered the juxtaposition of the geography and identity from their hey-day of the late 1990's to today. Back-to-back state champions in the final two years of Clinton's presidency, 0-10 this previous fall. Thinking of what it would have been like to be a
Columbus Dispatch reporter in 2000, covering the defending Division V state champions. Today, the Route 33 bypass from Carroll to Sugar Grove exists and serves as a quicker connection from Columbus to Amanda.
But that wasn't built until ~2003. Your only way to Amanda back then was to either drive to Lancaster with all dozen-or-so traffic lights (what is today the "Business Route") to catch US-22 to head
southwest (real novelty in having to drive deep southeast as the only way to work back further southwest) into Amanda, or, you take the backroads from Canal Winchester due south. Hoping that you ain't catch local Cletus who is five-deep behind the wheel of his Chevy 1500 as you reach the apex of the hills on 55-mph roads in the process. The phrase "hanging chad" was unheard of by that point. Every sixth car you'd have encountered would be a Ford Windstar. And it
never crosses your mind the idea that your country would experience a grave attack at the hands of foreign actors, or that there'd be fewer big towers in New York.
Time marched on. The Aces used to beat Canal Winchester on the regular; they never will again as Canal Winchester is in the Ohio Capital Conference these days. The far northwest chunk of Fairfield County today serves as a compact population center putting into effect a sociological transformation mirroring
Moore's law. Nearby Bloom-Carroll has blossomed and become a power. Longtime MSL foe Teays Valley to the northwest will be following in the footsteps that Canal Winchester disembarked for a decade ago, next year. But, alas, despite the exponential growth and the direct flow of riches that followed throughout much of the Columbus metropolitan area, Amanda's only change in that timeframe is the very-recent implementation of roundabouts on Route 22.
Other areas change,
some stay the same. But that isn't... it's
not a 'bad thing.' Highly-rural, agriculture dominant patch. Historical materialism bears out after all in this case? You can find the good. The open mind, the thoughtful mind and the worldly mind can come together to see the inspiration-and-appreciation of different places. Now, this specific instance I kind of had a leg up on since I have familial ties to a place that also generally mirrors Amanda: the community of West Branch, IA. Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, a community right off of I-80 due east of Iowa City that is home to a program of similar size and pedigree to Amanda... with a stadium they love just as every bit as the folks in the Twin Townships of southwest Fairfield County love "The Pit", Iowa's
Little Rose Bowl.
West Branch has undergone a little bit of faster, more-developed change compared to Amanda... I like to think that's primarily due to the much-smaller Iowa City (compared to Columbus) serving a more central role to the smaller-population Iowa. But, like Amanda, West Branch epitomizes a particular geographic identity vis-a-vis a large city... 3 hours : 200 miles from Chicago, but sure as hell feels like you're 3 days and 2,000 miles from it. Amanda is 40 minutes : 36 miles from Columbus, but the deception of being so close punctuates how far away you are. Horizon can possibly see it, but the curvature of the earth blunts your vision and it feels like one end of the world from the other as you walk the earthly clay. At least you can see the stars.
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Amanda is a football community where grit isn't a word on the bulletin board, but instead where it serves as a lifeblood. In today's football landscape, that's the only thing that a community such as A-C can be ahead of others in their respective competitive spheres. Speed and athleticism, others run apace faster; the role of being a destination place for kids where football is a key pathway to a good life after high school, Amanda is not; where new facilities and the flush of capital help get peer programs toward higher long-term ends to preserve, sustain and get further ahead in the arms-race aspects of high school football, the Aces stick with what they know. It's not a fear of change, but eschewing flash like new uniforms and new offices in favor of what has always been there evokes the inner lingering memory across all who play at 'The Pit.' It extends across generations, and
tradition doesn't graduate.
“Field of Dreams” c. 1998. Still in legendary coach Ron Hinton’s office, within the fieldhouse. One key difference 25 years later is the fields behind the visitor stands now serve as the bus barn and parking lot for the high school. Oh, that and they would later add two State Champions signs beneath the scoreboard.
