For a solid week Marion County’s football team has read Internet discussions, or been told directly, that its unlikely playoff run is about to come to an end. First-year head coach Troy Boeck has welcomed the disrespect because it gives him an easy rallying point for tonight’s Class 2A semifinal at top-ranked Alcoa.

“I love this role,” Boeck said. “We’re in a perfect scenario. I love the idea that everybody else is already talking about Alcoa being in the championship game next week.

“We aren’t stacked with unbelievable athletes. I’ve got a bunch of good football players who believe in themselves. But we’re playing with a lot of confidence, and I don’t think we’ll walk out on the field and be intimidated by any means.”

Maybe it’s because the Warriors have claimed three single-digit postseason wins, while Alcoa has obliterated its three playoff foes. Or maybe it’s because Marion is making its first appearance in the semifinals in 13 years, while Alcoa is the four-time defending state champion and Tornadoes coach Gary Rankin has exactly 280 more wins and 12 more state-finals appearances than Boeck.

Whatever the reason, although both teams have won 11 straight games, there are few folks not within ear shot of Marion’s tractor whistle who believe the Warriors will end the Tornadoes’ dominating run.

It actually reminds me of a similar scenario involving Marion, 16 years ago, when the Warriors were about to play unbeaten, nationally ranked Brentwood Academy, whose roster was dotted with future college players. The Class AA state title game was expected to be little more than a coronation for the Eagles, despite the fact Marion also was undefeated.

It was the first state championship I covered for the newspaper, and I decided to eavesdrop on Marion coach Ken Colquette’s pregame locker room speech. Colquette embraced the David role to mighty BA’s Goliath, reminding the Warriors that no matter the hype surrounding their opponent, that night’s opportunity was all that mattered.

“You’ve got a chance to do something tonight that nobody will ever take away from you,” Colquette told them. “Make the most of it.”

Then Marion shocked the Eagles and pretty much the rest of the state with a two-point win. The Eagles and their coaches were so distraught that the runner-up trophy was left on the sideline and a TSSAA official had to track down a manager and tell him to return to the field to retrieve the unwanted hardware.

This week I spoke with Colquette and another key contributor to that upset, Eric Westmoreland, who was a starting defensive back and kick returner on that Warrrios team. Each still vividly remembers the feeling from that title game and said they believe this year’s version has a chance to make its own mark on one of the area’s proudest programs.

“I’m just tickled to death for them,” said Colquette, now the principal at Grundy County. “It’s been a long time coming. They’re back and they should enjoy it.

“I hope those kids and coaches realize that they deserve to be there just as much as Alcoa. They’ve worked just as hard and they need to play like they belong there. Anything can happen in a one-game playoff, and that’s what I always wanted our teams to understand.”

Shortly after Boeck took over as head coach, he began calling upon former players to give a history lesson to the current team. He added assistants Shane Thomasson and Rodney Rankin, who helped the Warriors win state titles in the 1990s, and invited Westmoreland, who is still the program’s measuring stick, to come talk to the players.

Boeck then set the tone for the type team he wanted to develop with an extremely physical set of drills on the first day of preseason practice.

“It reminds me of when I was playing,” Westmoreland said. “The coaches have taught those kids to earn everything they get. I think everybody around that program has been waiting for this. The whistle is back and so is the veer offense, and we’ve had more fans than the other teams all through the playoffs.

“Nobody outside of our team believed we could beat Brentwood Academy, kind of like this year’s game at Alcoa. But when you play with a chip on your shoulder and believe your team has something to prove, you can shock people.”

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