Florence – Perhaps a third of the town’s 3,700 people had lined the sidewalks of Main Street, talking quietly in small groups in front of the 1880s brick and stone storefronts of this one-time oil-drilling mecca. And then the firetrucks turned the corner and blasted their sirens, and many of the villagers responded the way they always do at such a parade. They barked.
Woof-woof. Woof-woof-woof.
Sitting atop the firetrucks were the football players of Florence High, winners once again of a state championship. On Saturday afternoon, the town turned out to salute them.
Woof-woof.
They are the Huskies, of course, which explains all the loud barking. And also why sophomore Tom Tingey could have used a bowl of cold water.
“I’m already hot and thirsty,” Tingey said, even before the parade had started, his muffled words sneaking out from underneath the giant snout of the heavy dog-mascot costume that he wore during the football season. “There’s a fan inside the head, but all it does is move the hot, sweaty air around.”
On a more positive note – and don’t think Tingey wasn’t aware of his good luck – he got to ride on a fire department rescue vehicle in the parade, surrounded by the cheerleaders, who hugged him a lot.
That dog.
The parade came a week after the Huskies chewed on the Rifle High School Bears, winning the state Class 3A title in a 35-14 rout. It was the fourth state football championship for the school with an enrollment of some 520 students, and its second in three years.
Leading the way down Main Street was the truck carrying the cheerleaders and Tom the lucky dog. And if the football team had to overcome some obstacles – it got thrashed, 27-12, in its second game of the season – get a load of what the cheerleaders went through.
“Our coach got fired just before the state cheerleading competition,” said cheerleader Jessica Ricotta. “And during the season another high school stole our entire routine, the routine we won last year’s state championship with. They just stole the entire thing.”
With five days to go before the competition, the cheerleaders had no routine and no coach.
“So you know what they did?” asked Scott Hall, the father of cheerleader Mindy Hall. “They went to the park on Monday night, without a coach, in the cold and dark, and stayed there until they had a new routine worked out. They were up against cheerleading teams that had choreographers and brand new uniforms, and they’re out there at night in the park trying to put it all back together.”
The girls finished second in the state competition.
Of course, you might expect that kind of toughness from a town that’s home to the federal Supermax prison. The list of people living out there on the edge of Florence includes Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, would-be airline shoe bomber Richard Reid, 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols.
Back at the three firetruck parade, which passed by in just under 35 seconds, the football Huskies – their fans call them the Big Dogs – smiled and waved. The town is building a new high school. It will open in the fall of 2006, replacing the school that has stood in the middle of town since 1920. It will come with a new football field, too.
For many of the players, it would be the last time anyone barked at them.
“You know,” said senior William Gavigan, who played linebacker, “it’s just setting in now that it’s all over. The Friday-night lights. I sure will miss this game.”
Billy Murphey, also a senior, struggled with the goodbye.
“A lot of us have played football together in this town since we were 5 years old,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine that we won’t play anymore. We’re pretty tight. We all knew that if anyone on the team had a problem and needed help, with football or with school or with something personal, well, they always knew they had us.”
He paused then and looked away. Several of his teammates moved closer.
“We were,” Murphey said, “a family.”
And then, in a little town with a lot of pride, it was time for him and 18 other seniors to climb onto the firetrucks and head down Main Street.
Big Dogs.
One last time.
