He was the quarterback, and he went to Ole Miss. Then, the second time was when they brought in Nick Hyder from Rome.. Hyder, a devout Christian, brought fans and players from both teams together for an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) banquet on Thursday night prior to the big game, allowing the two sides to fellowship over dinner. Freshman Buck Belue took over the starting Quarterback job at Valdosta in 1974 and he didn't give it back until he used up his eligibility. Buck Belue - Player Card Home >> Minor League Baseball College Baseball High School Baseball Boxscores and Analysis Other Topics Minor Leagues >> Minor League Players Minor League Teams Affiliate History Minor Leagues Minor Leagues by Season Independent Baseball Leagues Prospects Minor League Awards Minor League People Minor League Transactions Rome said in high school, he did. I wanted the freedom to do what I wanted to do, you know? Valdosta missed a two-point try in the third quarter and a 31-yard field goal with 1:23 left. It doesnt get better than that. Tired of losing to their city school rival, and tired of just losing in general over the first decade of the teams existence, Lowndes County school superintendent Sonny Martin decided to reach out to one of the enemy, longtime Valdosta assistant coach Joe Wilson. Valdosta High School - Sandspur Yearbook (Valdosta, GA), Class of 1978, Page 57 of 272 | E-Yearbook.com has the largest online yearbook collection of college, university, high school, middle school, junior high school, military, naval cruise books and yearbooks. But Belues retelling of that episode during Georgias 1980 championship season is just one example of the honest account the former star quarterback shares of playing for the Bulldogs from 1978-81. The Valdosta Wildcats have been playing football since 1913, and with over 900 wins, 24 state championships, six national championships, and a bunch of region titles, they remain the winningest high school football team in the country. George Rogers, the 1980 Heisman Trophy winner while at South Carolina, was the AJCs Class A Back of the Year in 1976 and Class B Back of the Year in 1975. Today's interviewee is Buck Belue, sports talk show host for 680 The Fan, quarterback for Georgia's 1980 national championship team, four-year starting quarterback at Valdosta, inaugural selectee into the new Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame and author of a new book, "Inside The Hedges," a look at Georgia's 1980 season and his athletic career. VHS is one of only 39 schools in Georgia . He was the 1974 AJC Class 3A Back of the Year and was a 1974 Coach & Athlete All-American. The Winnersville Classic featuring Lowndes vs. Valdosta was born. That place [Lowndes home stadium] was rocking before the 77 game, but we had known after that 76 game that this game was going to be different, and it was.. [2] Belue was named captain of the 1981 team. He was the quarterback, and he went to Ole Miss. An astounding number at the time and a record that took more than a decade to break. The Lowndes administration was not happy about our little stunt.. Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. Valdosta missed a two-point try in the third quarter and a 31-yard field goal with 1:23 left. A couple of students jumped in the water and secured the ship so that it would not float over to the shore.. @ThePodcastPark. We had some tense moments during those years, but I sort of wanted a hard-to-please coach. Last season, he was backup to another Valdosta alumnus, All-Southeastern. Belue played one more season at Georgia, leading the Bulldogs to a 10-2 record the following year while engineering an offense that averaged 31 points per game, the ninth most in the country in 1981. I remember in the 1981 game, quarterback John Bond took off down the Lowndes sideline and ran for an 80-yard touchdown, Baker said. Plus, Buck's Beat Podcast. Some call them Winnersville. ], Then, Valdosta was really laying down the hammer in 1971 [winning a national championship in Coach Bazemores final season]. As a young boy there growing up in Valdosta, we all dreamed of the day we would get to high school and wear that Wildcat uniform and win a state title. That turned on a light for me. In September 2020, the show was recast as Buck and Hut, pairing Belue with fellow former Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Hutson Mason after Kincade was laid off by the station. Probably the most successful event to date was a couple of weeks ago in Valdosta. In football, Belue was named to the first-team All-SEC team in 1981. In baseball, he had a career .356 batting average and became a second-round pick in the 1978 MLB Draft. This record was later broken by Aaron Murray's 98-yard touchdown pass to Reggie Davis in Georgia's victory over North Texas in 2013. He finished ninth in the Heisman trophy voting in 1979. He recalled how Valdosta supporters would take the opportunity in front of a full house of fans from both sides to get the Cats fired up just one more time. Truth is, Lowndes would struggle against everyone else too, winning just 31 games in that first decade of football with four different head football coaches. Buck's Beat podcast episode 80 has dropped. 2022 cohort graduation rate for Valdosta High School . It was the last one. It includes Brooks County to the west.. Valdosta is the home of Valdosta State University, a regional university in the University . He fell short of a state title when Clarke Central beat Valdosta 16-14 in the 1977 Class 3A championship. He had everybody running the same offense so that by time you got to middle school and high school, you didnt have to learn any of it. We talked about a lot of things. They put it on us my freshman year. Heset a Bengals record in 1984 with four rushing touchdowns in a game against the Houston Oilers. The problem was the plane didnt get low enough, and the wind blew the flyers all over the neighborhood next to the practice field.. Salary in 2020. 1. I had Jack Rudolph coaching the defense. He was drafted by the Chiefs of the NFL and the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA. In practice, it was always the 1s against the 1s. While Atlanta was being called Loserville by mostly state and national sports writers, Chason replied in his column that Valdosta was doing very well with the success of its local sports teams and was worthy of the title Winnersville.. But it was more than that. Thats when I figured it was time to go., 3. Valdosta is the principal city of the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2021 had a population of 149,590. The players gathered together on the steps of the old McWhorter Hall athletic dormitory and seethed. I learned some things from him. I talked with Coach [Jim] Hughes about that later. ], Then, Valdosta was really laying down the hammer in 1971 [winning a national championship in Coach Bazemores final season]. Most coaches are going to take their schemes to the grave, but he learned the new offense and made the change for the team. Ive been wanting to do this for some time, Belue said. The native of Jessup has made his home in Valdosta since retiring from professional football and is an avid supporter of UGA athletics and a dedicated follower of local high school football. I really appreciate him letting me come out here and do this, because a lot of coaches wouldnt.. Belue told Turner and Johnson that three things a good quarterback must do are: know the down and distance, protect the football and be tough. Buck goes shopping with his daughter at the Braves Store in SunTrust Park.It is obvious they are not on the same page when it comes to jersey shopping.. As for the Dooley thing, Belue makes no apologies. John Lastinger remembers that game and the play. Brooks made the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 2014. The quarterback thing happened late for me, and it was Wright Bazemore that told the middle school coach to move me to quarterback, so I owe much of my football success to Coach Bazemore for having the insight to get me over to that position. "I had a daily planner that my dad gave me when I was at Georgia," Belue said. It remains one of those indelible football moments from which Buck Belue can never escape, nor does he want to. His career total of 4,756 set a state record for the highest classification. Buck Belue famously guided Georgia's football team to a national championship 42 years ago. [Rome, a 6-foot-4 tight end, set a national record for receiving yards in a season. This University of Georgiarelated article is a stub. He was the quarterback for the Georgia Bulldogs in 1980, when the team went 120, and, after beating Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, was named the consensus national champion. Coach Wilson would be saying we can throw to this running back because weve got this linebacker on him. One of the motivations for doing the book was to talk about Valdosta High School and the football program through the years, and Ive had so many people, whether theyre Bulldog fans or not, ask questions about how Valdosta won all those games. I had other friends there, too, just like they did that day in that room. Belue set the state record for career passing yards with 5,214, which he accumulated as a four-year starter at Valdosta. Thats the way it was at Valdosta. Whichever you prefer, this town has won a lot of high school football games over the years.Valdosta High School has 24 state titles to it's cred. Belue also details in the book how he. We missed a chip-shot field goal that wouldve won the state championship for all of us. The 55-yard scamper, with Reid zig-zagging his way through the entire Valdosta defense on his way to the endzone, sealed the victory for the Vikings against the visiting Wildcats. 10 high school player in state history. He played at 6 feet, 2 inches, and 240 pounds but was exceptionally fast. Rush Propst believes the Netflix series "Titletown High," which debuts Friday and chronicles the 2020 season of the Valdosta High School football team, will "clear some things up" about . The talented running back rushed 21 times for 414 yards and 6 TDs, leading Lowndes to a 71-35 victory. 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