In 1957, UNC won the NCAA basketball championship and Tar Heel coach Frank McGuire came to Morganton that spring to speak to local alumni. The school’s new football coach, Jim Tatum, came along and also spoke to the gathering.
Carolina’s football glory days, the Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice era, were seven years behind them when the school hired Coach Tatum to bring them back. He had turned out great teams at the University of Maryland and big things were expected of him.
Three of Morganton High School’s most outstanding football players were invited to the affair that was held at the Morganton Community House and were recognized individually. They were Oval Jaynes, Johnny Markas and Bucky Smith and all three later played college football.
Jaynes was an All-Conference player at Appalachian, Markas was a starter on Duke’s Cotton Bowl-winning team in 1960 and Smith played at UNC.
Tragedy struck all too hard that summer when Coach Tatum died of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Carolina’s football hopes died along with him.
Things didn’t work out for Smith either. He made the team and after playing some, decided to leave the university and follow a career in the furniture industry. He passed away last week at 72 after losing a battle with cancer and left many friends in our area who remembered him as a fine, all-around athlete and person.
Thinking of Morganton High School football, I was reminded Friday night of their many great games with the Valdese Tigers. Valdese held its own in the Northwestern 3-A Conference against much larger school like Hickory, Shelby and Lenoir, as Coach Burt Barger turned out winning teams year after year.
The Freedom-Draughn match-up was certainly not the old rivalry between the two towns , but it was the closest thing to it in nearly 40 years.
Friday’s game matched up 38-year-old Freedom and 3-year-old Draughn and was a little closer than the 22-7 score may indicate. I went to the game expecting the Patriots to dominate with their passing game but their ground game, defense and field-goal unit proved just as strong. This takes nothing away from their aerial attack but means they have an all-around fine team led by one of the best quarterbacks to play in our county in a long time.
Michael Helms is a big boy who can really throw a football and being the coach’s son has given him another advantage over most quarterbacks. When a player lives with a coach 18 years, it sets him apart from his peers in an understanding of the game and it showed Friday night in his calm leadership and strong all-around skills.
He passed for 232 yards and ran for 54 more, giving him nearly 300 total yards for the game. Helms showed an ability to execute the drop back pass even though he usually ended up rolling out. I would like to see him use a few more shorter, drop back attempts to give opponents another look to worry about.
It’s going to take a very good team to beat Freedom High and I personally commend Coach Helms for a job well done.
Roy Waters was the baseball and basketball coach from 1955 to 1966 at Salem High School where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.
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