Suwannee Sports
Old Oaken Bucket rivalry taking center stage
Live Oak —
corey.davis@gaflnews.com
LAKE CITY-Entering its 21st year (20th statewide) the Beef O‘ Brady’s High School Football Scoreboard Show is celebrating a milestone this season.
As a thank you to all of his loyal supporters, host Steve Berrey is going back to some of his favorite stops on the statewide tour. Among the 11 scheduled 2010 stops is the Old Oaken Bucket rivalry November 12 between Suwannee and host Columbia.
It’s one of the state’s oldest rivalries and I can’t go to it at Suwannee (no Beef O Brady’s there),” Berrey said. “It’s been a while since I have been there (three years), so I wanted to say thank your for 20 years. I have been there once but never been to the Old Oaken Bucket game, but I’m really looking forward to it.”
Newly hired Suwannee Athletic Director Hunter Abercrombie shared his thoughts on being selected as a stop this season.
“Obviously it’s a statewide show with high recognition, most people listen to the show. It’s a huge honor to be selected, that shows how good the Suwanee/Columbia rivalry is. There’s what 11 weeks and 22 teams that are selected, so to be picked up says a lot about the rivalry,” Abercrombie said. “I think the reason it got chosen was it has a lot of tradition and is thought of highly on a state wide level and both teams have Division I-A prospects this year.”
Berrey attends each game on the stop and leaves at the end of the third quarter to start setting up for the show later that night. The show is the only statewide high school football call-in program. Over 20 radio stations, including 98.1 FM, broadcast the show every Friday night from 10-12 p.m. during the football season.
Fans are invited to join Berrey at the Beef O Brady’s at 857 Southwest Main Street in Lake City immediately following the game.
Beginning at 10 p.m., Berrey will begin getting calls from people all over the state with scores from fans, media and coaches from the games they all attended. In addition to getting scores, Berrey also tries to line up interviews with coaches and provides his analysis of the Game of the Week.
Berrey continues to do the show to promote high school sports, high school football in particular. The fan base has remained pretty consistent as there are a lot of great fans that listen every week.
“I do this because I love to do it and I also love it cause Miss Minnie from Live Oak calls every week,” Berrey told Michael Langston from FlaVarsity.com.
“Stan from Fort Myers calls in every week, I have got to meet Stan and he’s gotten to be a good friend. The fans really make it all worth it,” Berrey said. “Also high school football fans are great. You look at the fan bases, like a listener in Tallahassee that has no children, but he and his wife will come out and sit and listen to the show. This happens all over the state, just the love for high school sports.”
- Suwannee Sports
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Jamboree time for Dog Pound
The Suwannee Dog Pound travels to Starke Saturday to participate in the annual Putnam Athletic League Jamboree. Admission is $3 for adults and free for kids under 17-years old.
All four teams including the Tiny Mites, Mighty Mites, Jr. Pee Wee and Pee Wee, will play a 20 minute running clock quarter at Bradford County High School.
The Tiny Mites will meet the Gainesville Blue at 10:40 a.m., the Mighty Mites will meet host Bradford at 11:55 a.m., Jr. Pee Wee will meet Gainesville Orange at 2 p.m. and Pee Wee will meet Santa Fe at 5:20 p.m. -
Dress rehearsal
Since the end of May when Spring football practice ended both Suwannee and Branford have been extremely busy in the summer preparing for the fall.
The wait over, as both schools will participate in their annual Kickoff Classic tonight. One of the many things that kept the teams busy was competing in a 7-on-7 passing league, conditioning and attending camps.
Branford coach Bill Wiles said in addition to his team playing 7-on-7 they have been lifting weights and conditioning. -
A new beginning
LIVE OAK-Another school year has begun and one school is taking the phrase “a new beginning” to another level.
Before leaving her post as principal at Suwannee High, Dawn Lamb hired Willie Spears as the new football coach. Newly hired Athletic Director Hunter Abercrombie has been on the job for two months now, joining newly hired principal Ted Roush, and in that short period, Abercrombie has had to replace several coaches as well.
Abercrombie accepted the job over the summer after working at First Federal for the three previous years. -
Back-to-back champs
LIVE OAK-Despite winning the regular season title, there was one team that remained a constant thorn in Suwannee River Community Church’s side: First Baptist Church of Live Oak.
SRCC (16-2) held off Tabernacle Baptist (15-3) by one game to win the title, with First Baptist (14-4) two games behind.
The lone team to knock off SRCC was First Baptist, which did it twice, so when First Baptist and SRCC met in the Suwannee Parks and Recreation Men’s Church League tournament at First Federal Sportsplex, you know SRCC was looking for some revenge. -
Dog Pound kicks off
The Dog Pound met arch-rival Columbia Tigers in a running clock scrimmage Thursday at Paul Langford Stadium.
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85 years of history
LIVE OAK-Suwannee High football celebrates its 85th season this year, having started in 1926.
This reporter has been researching the history of all four area schools and has come across many interesting stories. I am still in need of help of schedules and scores from several years, the attached chart shows some of what I have found and still need. -
Suwannee football history
^-Need schedule/scores
1939: (10-1) ^
1960: (2-8) ^
1961: (6-4) ^
1962: (11-0) ^
1967: (10-1) ^
1970: (6-5)
1971: (7-4) -
Quarterback Club on the move
LIVE OAK-The Suwannee High Quarterback Club has been busy over the summer with various activities.
Among them was handing out scholarships to deserving student-athletes to go towards their college tuition.
Recent graduate Joe McMillan now at Cumberland, was the recipient of the Ken Baldwin award and a Wesley Silas $500 scholarship winner.
Silas was a very active as a volunteer with the Suwannee High football team before his accidental death on the job on March 1, 1994.
Minnie Silas, mother of Wesley Silas, donates $100 towards the scholarship, while the Quarterback Club chips in with $400. Initial funding for the scholarship came from a successful charity golf tournament. -
Babe Ruth wrapup
LIVE OAK- We watched them compete for district and state titles for weeks at the First Federal Sportsplex, but what happened when they left town?
In the span of a month, about 60 Babe Ruth baseball teams competed in the District 6 (June 10-13) and North Florida State tournaments (July 15-17), but after winning or losing in the tournaments they all went their separate ways. So what happened to the winners from each of those tournaments? -
Green, White game this weekend
After two weeks of intense practices, Suwannee High will have its annual Green and White football scrimmage game Saturday at 8:30 a.m. at Paul Langford Stadium.
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Jamboree time for Dog Pound
