Staff photo by John Rawlston/Chattanooga Times Free Press – Dec 2, 2010
Baylor Headmaster Scott Wilson checks a list as students and fans board buses Thursday afternoon to take them to their football team’s state championship game at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville Thursday night.Five busloads worth of parents, students and fans loaded onto charter buses this afternoon to follow the Baylor football team to Cookville for the state championship game.
Baylor Principal Scott Wilson, who was a junior in 1973 when Baylor last won a state championship, was present to send off the fans.
“I don’t have anything to do with it,” Wilson said. “It’s a bunch of great kids and great coaches, and they’ve worked to get to this.”
Keith Longley, a 45-year old Rock Spring, Ga., resident who has a freshman and a senior in the school band, called the state championship run a “culmination” of his senior’s seven-year Baylor career.
“It’s just fantastic, especially for our senior,” said Longley, who also graduated from Baylor.
A few middle-schoolers, who said they hope to play football at Baylor High School one day, climbed aboard the buses for the trip.
“It’s a good experience because they haven’t been to the state championship since 1977,” said 14-year old Elijah Cartwright.
Cartwright, an eighth-grader at Baylor, said he hoped the school continues the winning tradition and hopes to play for the Red Raiders himself in a few years.