JASPER, Tenn. - Marion County has been to six TSSAA football state-championship games, its last in 1995. But as a team resurgence has begun to take place in recent years, so was there a yearning to bring back a tradition that's as synonymous with the Warriors program as the purple helmets.
The train whistle is back -- and with a vengeance.
Just ask the seven opponents Marion County has outscored 331-96 in Jasper this season on the way to an 11-1 record and a home Class 2A semifinal tonight against Knoxville's Grace Christian Academy. Kickoff is scheduled at 8 p.m. EST.
Chris Allender is the driving force behind the rejuvenation of the whistle, which he now safeguards. It used to be connected to an air compressor seated on a trailer, which still sits at the field.
Marion County head coach Ricky Ross instructs his team before the game.It's the same Lunkenheimer three-chime steam whistle that Berton Cagle bought and was renowned for sounding off every time the Warriors made a big play during Marion's remarkable run of success in the 1990s. It came off an L&N locomotive from the 1890s.
There was a time when the trailored compressor was hitched and hauled to away games, even to Nashville as far back as 1982 when the Warriors made their first appearance in a title game.
"At first they kept it on an old Ford tractor and hauled it everywhere," Allender said of the whistle. "When the tractor got so old and worn out, someone donated that air compressor, they had it painted purple and started blowing it with that.
"Then it just wore out, but we're not ready to part with it yet. It's just been a part of Marion County football for a long, long time."
Eric Westmoreland is a former Tennessee linebacker and NFL player who helped Marion County win state championships in 1992, 1994 and 1995. He likened the custom to Mississippi State's ringing of the cowbells.
"I think of that whistle as a sense of pride," Westmoreland said. "It's a stable thing for our program. It was something the guys liked to hear every Friday night. We'd always have teams, especially on the road, try not to let us bring it. They kind of saw that as our calling card."
The whistle is only at home games these days. Allender has rigged an apparatus under the home bleachers that has an extension that rises above the stands about six to eight feet, he said. He used to connect the whistle to different air compressors borrowed from local townspeople every Friday, until recently when a Chattanooga company donated one to the program.
Looking from the field and facing the home side, Jamie Thomas and Lawrence Grimes sit and watch the games from the upper-right corner of the stands. They control the rod that Allender has attached to the whistle.
Allender said he often heard questions about the whistle during the years it wasn't in use. It was about three years ago that he approached Marion County principal Larry Ziegler, who had it locked up in a school office for safekeeping, about bringing the whistle back.
Allender remembers testing it at the field that year before the season.
"We blew it, and before you know it people that lived nearby were texting us saying, 'I can hear the whistle.' You can hear it from a long way away. It's got a distinctive sound. Some boys said, 'Get it ready, because you're going to be blowing it a lot this year.'"
Marion County first-year coach Ricky Ross spent time as an assistant coach at Calhoun, which is a football-crazed community in Georgia. He said horns were a big thing at Yellow Jackets games, but he quickly learned that didn't compare to the Warriors' ritual of blowing the train whistle.
"We want to hear it," Ross said. "That means good things are happening."
There are those at the games who don't care much about hearing the whistle. Tonight that will be the Rams and their fans.
But unless they can stop Marion County from getting any sacks or fumble recoveries or touchdowns, they're going to hear and feel that oncoming train.
"We don't have much around here, but we have football," Allender said. "And everybody here likes to hear that whistle."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him at twitter.com/KelleySmiddie.