Column: Simon and staff give Beavers the edge

Column by TOM BONE

You won’t see many hits harder than the one Bluefield’s Jake Lilly laid on Sherman High running back Jacob Halstead Friday night in a quarterfinal playoff game in Boone County.

And it might not have happened if it weren’t for the quick thinking of Lilly’s head coach Fred Simon and his staff.

Things were more than bleak for Bluefield’s many faithful fans at the start of the game. Halstead ran four times, and 225-pound quarterback Colby Treadway ran two keepers for 34 yards, in a 55-yard march that gave the homestanding Tide a 6-0 lead in the first three minutes of game time.

Then Sherman’s Jacob Rollo recovered a short, high kick and the Tide had the ball again.

But things were about to change. The Beavers flip-flopped some players on defense and the grand chess game of move and counter-move began.

“Coach made adjustments,” Lilly said. “All week I practiced at safety. I came from safety to linebacker to key on the quarterback. And Byron (Steptoe) came back at safety to help out with the pass. ... The other two linebackers spied on the running back.

“It was just a big adjustment — a good job by the coaching staff.”

Lilly said that Treadway is “a great athlete. He runs hard, he knows how to scramble, he’s got a good arm. I’ll give it to him.”

Anybody who has seen Lilly perform on a football field, a baseball diamond or a wrestling mat knows that the term “great athlete” should be applied to No. 12 as well.

Fellow all-state football player Marcus Patterson did his job as well. He was asked after the game what it took to beat previously-unbeaten Sherman.

“It took somebody to shut down the number-one receiver that they had,” said Patterson, who drew that monumental task. “It took the linebackers to shut down the quarterback. That’s where they started killing us, at the first. But we put Jake back up there. And we got a victory.”

Bluefield got its last points with about five minutes remaining when Sherman took timeout after a Brad Fox 19-yard run. Simon’s staff went deep into the playbook.

On a quick snap, as most of the backfield lurched one way in a deceptive move, quarterback Levi Beckett dashed through the line and kept going for a 34-yard score.

Beckett is yet another example of Simon’s wily coaching ability. Beckett broke his collarbone in a game on Sept. 19. He returned on Oct. 23 once Bluefield had a comfortable lead over Oak Hill.

He was gradually worked into the offense, getting more confidence as he worked the rust off. By playoff time he was more than ready for running into the maelstrom of the line himself.

The quarterback’s father, Jeff Beckett, said, “We knew they wouldn’t put him in too soon.”

It was only a few years ago that some people were dismissing Simon’s capacity to lead Bluefield. I heard the occasional remark, even after a championship run, “if so-and-so was still the coach, Beaver would’a had four more championships by now.”

Though he’d never admit being bothered by such talk, Fred Simon is proving those nay-sayers wrong, year by year.

• • •

Another coach is being remembered. With the one-year anniversary of the death of Morgan Campbell, the long-time baseball coach at Graham High School, comes the news that a scholarship in his name has been established at Bluefield State College.

It’s planned that it will help at least one young baseball athlete next year. Contributions in any amount will be accepted to help the scholarship grow and to honor the memory of this huge-hearted and strong-willed man.

*****

Tom Bone is a Daily Telegraph sports writer and editorial cartoonist. Contact him at tbone@bdtonline.com.

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