As with most things involving bitter rivals Marion County and South Pittsburg, even the potential for rescheduling this season’s matchup has turned contentious.
After their game was canceled just hours before kickoff last Friday when Marion announced it had a player who had tested positive for COVID-19, a potential make-up date unexpectedly came open over the weekend. However when Marion administrators informed South Pittsburg on Monday that they were declining to reschedule, it didn’t take long for word to spread through the small community and supporters on both sides spent much of the day flooding social media with antagonistic posts as Warriors fans argued that their cross-county rivals were being unreasonable while Pirates supporters accused Marion of simply wanting to dodge playing the game because South Pittsburg was favored.
By the end of the day South Pittsburg administrators admitted the situation had escalated to the point that they were considering ending the rivalry altogether and no longer scheduling Marion in any sport. The football contract ends after this season, so both teams would have to sign a new two-year agreement after this season to continue the rivalry.
“Does anybody think I wanted to load up on that bus five years ago with 29 players and only two seniors and go play a state championship caliber team?” said Pirates coach and athletic director Vic Grider, referring to the 2015 game in which Marion defeated his team by 41 points. “But I was man enough to go compete because what kind of message would that send to our kids if we didn’t? I took the loss that night but on the bus ride home I made a vow that we would work to get better and make sure we never lost to them again and we haven’t.
“We’re certainly looking at whether we would continue to play them. It’s a shame that such a great rivalry ends like this but we laid out a plan to work with them and make the game happen for the kids and both communities this season and they had no interest in doing that.”