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When the Irwin County High Indians and the Fitzgerald High Purple Hurricane football teams step onto the field Friday night at Ocilla's Buddy Nobles Stadium, a gridiron rivalry begun in 1922 records another page in its history.
Ocilla's first football team was formed in 1922, and its first game on Oct. 20 that year was against Fitzgerald High, which had already been playing football for awhile. Fitzgerald won that contest handily 64-0, but the next year Ocilla came roaring back and beat Fitzgerald.
Thus, one of Georgia's oldest prep rivalries was underway.
The Fitzgerald-Irwin rivalry isn't the longest continuous one in the state because Irwin disbanded its football team in the 1930s during the Great Depression and then resurrected it after World War II in 1946. But few teams have kept facing each other in the state since the 1920s.
And Irwin and Fitzgerald have met on the football field every year since 1954. Last year, Irwin won the contest, 19-13.
In South Georgia, fans are passionate about high-school football, and nowhere is that passion more on display than when Fitzgerald and Irwin County face off each season. The two schools are separated by only about 10 miles, contributing to the intensity of the rivalry.
“I think it’s just awesome to have high school football communities like this. They’re so supportive,” said Fitzgerald Head Coach Wesley "Tank" Tankersley.
Tankersley and Irwin County Head Coach Larry Harold are both new in their respective jobs this season, and they appeared together Monday at a joint meeting of the Ocilla and Fitzgerald Rotary Clubs in Ocilla.
Both coaches acknowledged that South Georgia high school football is different from what they are used to, and the cross-county rivalry makes the coaches and players excited and highly motivated.
“It’s kind of tough having the first game of the season being the highest-stake game that means a lot to so many people,” said Irwin Coach Harold. He tells his players to “focus on what you can control, getting better every day” and disregard the banter back and forth and on social media.
“To me, it makes it more fun, it makes it exciting,” said Fitzgerald Coach Tankersley. “Being able to get into a rivalry like this with new coaches, new schemes” while they are still learning their way around is different. “But it makes it easy to get the kids motivated. I called my son up in Kentucky and told him I’m going to this Rotary thing. He said, ‘That’s some Friday Night Lights stuff right there,’” said Tankersley, who is originally from Ellijay.
Irwin County’s Harold most recently coached football at Central High School in Lawrenceville, a school of about 2,800 kids. He said that in South Georgia, “where football was born,” high school football is different from the Atlanta area.
“We don’t do stuff like this (Rotary meeting with the coaches) in Atlanta,” Harold said. He said the superintendent of Irwin County Schools Kerry Billingsley came and spoke to the team.
“In Atlanta, if you’re talking to the superintendent, something’s wrong – you’re in big trouble,” Harold said. “The superintendent’s there, our principal spoke to them, it means so much to everybody here, giving back to the kids.”
Harold said some of his players to watch Friday night include the punter No. 16 Melvin Webb; on offense, No. 4 Terrio Wilcox; and on defense, No. 0 Jayden Tyson and No. 15 Jacob Pless.
Tankersley said that among Fitzgerald players to watch are No. 6 Victor Copeland on offense and No. 11 Tyson King on defense. “In scrimmage, we had six or seven guys touch the ball,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that will be a huge factor for us this year.”
Meeting moderator Gary Smith of the Fitzgerald Rotary Club, a former Rotary Club district governor, concluded the joint meeting by telling the coaches, “We can’t pay you enough for what you do.”
The Ocilla and Fitzgerald Rotary clubs have a decade-long tradition of a 10-plus-mile, stadium-to-stadium relay run on game day; the run begins at 4 p.m. Friday. Fitzgerald club members will meet at Jaycee Stadium, 702 S. Hill St., in Fitzgerald and run with the game ball for about five miles to the Ben Hill/Irwin County line on Highway 129.
There, Ocilla Rotary Club members will take over and run the football to the Irwin County field, Buddy Nobles Stadium, at 149 Chieftan Circle in Ocilla.
At 7 p.m., the presidents of both clubs and Gary Smith will start at a goal post and walk the football to the players after the coin toss and hand it to the referee for it to be used as the game football.
That game football, of course, is colored half purple and gold for Fitzgerald and half red and black for Irwin County.
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