Final Iaeger-Big Creek game a celebration of past and future

Iaeger and Big Creek first began playing football in 1937. Fanning Field saw its first football game that same year.

All three are going out at the same time.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Iaeger resident Tom Fanning said. “We knew it had to come one of these days.”

That time has come.

The 55th and final football game between McDowell County neighbors Iaeger and Big Creek came on Friday night, with the Cubs winning an entertaining 46-26 decision to keep alive their playoff hopes.

This was, however, one of those nights when football wasn’t the big story.

This was about two student bodies accepting their fate, and preparing to become the Riverview Raiders in the fall of 2010 at the long-anticipated new facility in Bradshaw.

“When you have good people at both sides it’s a whole lot easier to mesh,” Big Creek coach Mike Vallo said. “I think it is going to go pretty good.”

“They’ve got some good athletes,” added Iaeger coach Mitch Estep. “We get that mix together and I believe we’re going to be pretty good. They’ve got what we need and we’ve got what they need. I think that will be something special.”

And not just on the football field.

Those affected the most when change is hardest are the kids, yet students on both sides seemed to have warmed to the idea. After the teams met in the middle of the field following Friday’s games, the two sides — the Owls and Cubs — put their helmets together and let out a “Raiders” in unison.

That wasn’t scripted, that came from the kids.

“I’m so proud of our kids and I’m so proud of their kids the way they have come together and accepted this,” said Estep, who has taken part in 29 games in this series, which Big Creek finished with a 37-17-1 advantage. “We think this is going to be a good thing.

“We’re real excited for it, but we’ve been for a while and I think the kids are just picking up on it now so that is a good thing.”

What will become of the two school buildings, the centerpiece for both of these close-knit communities? There’s talk that BCHS could become a museum, while IHS might be demolished to make room for a new elementary school.

Sounds familiar? A few years ago, Big Creek’s Mario Poletti Field was bulldozed over, and is holding up an elementary school. Fanning Field could face the same fate.

No one will hate to see that happen more than Tom Fanning.

In 1937, James P. “Pat” Fanning, a prominent Iaeger businessman, provided the funding for a football field that was named in his honor.

“He’s the reason we have a football field,” said Tom Fanning, Pat’s son, who watched the final Iaeger-Big Creek game from the press box, keeping the statistics to help construct a story for the community’s weekly newspaper, the “Industrial News.”

Tom Fanning can still recall the first game on that field. The Cubs defeated Chatteroy, a school located near Williamson, ‘possibly’ by a score of 12-6. Iaeger played Big Creek for the first time that season, with the Owls winning 45-7.

Iaeger High School — which opened in 1953 — replaced the ‘old’ facility, a four-story building that still stands across the river from its current site.

The gymnasium — which has all the character of Hickory High in the movie “Hoosiers” — opened in 1955, and Fanning was part of the first class to graduate in there in ‘56.

Fanning Field has endured much in its 72 years, including three floods, including the most recent on May 2, 2002 when the waters from the nearby Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River got as high as the door knobs on the locker room doors adjacent to the field.

“We’ve had three floods and we’re still standing,” Fanning said.

Ask Estep, and the first thing he’ll talk about isn’t his team, it’s about what the school and community mean to each other. Fanning will say the same.

“We’ve got a good history here, and the community is behind them. Win, lose or draw and the people are here,” Fanning said. “Some might slack off when we lose a few games, but most of them are here.

“The community is behind the team and the school. I’ve seen those bleachers over there just filled with people with no umbrellas and the rain pouring and they wouldn’t leave if you paid them. That is dedication.”

It was a night to remember for everyone in attendance, including me. I wasn’t scheduled to attend the game, but a late Friday afternoon phone call sent me on the move, trying to change schedules around and head down to Iaeger myself.

Am I ever glad I did.

The game itself was entertaining, but this was more than football. It was the capacity crowd, the sense that something special was coming to an end, a performance by the seven-person Iaeger band, and the appearance by Natalie Canerday, who played Homer Hickam’s mother, Elsie, in the movie “October Sky.”

Canerday, I was told, wasn’t the first movie “star” to make an appearance in Iaeger. Lorne Greene of “Bonanza” fame visited in 1969 campaigning for presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey.

It was a special night. Once the game ended, a banner was unfurled from a school window that read, “Now we are one, Riverview Raiders.”

From there, a party ensued. Fans, players, media, everyone was invited to stay and enjoy food, fellowship and fun.

Many did. I left more than an hour after the game, and the excitement was still going strong.

It might still be going. It was that kind of night.

Iaeger will host Wyoming East this Friday, a game that will be dedicated to the Fanning family, which first made football in Iaeger possible more than seven decades ago.

Tom was asked if he was going to make a speech.

His reply, “Thanks everybody,” he said, pretending to tip his cap to the crowd. “I’ve enjoyed it.”

He’s not the only one.

—Brian Woodson is the sports editor with the Daily Telegraph. He can be contacted at bwoodson@bdtonline.com

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