It’s early on Saturday morning, the first Saturday of November, 2021, and I am smiling broadly as I pound away on my keyboard. I am happy, content, my cat is on my lap, coffee is brewing in the kitchen, a fire is going in the fireplace. I am usually happy and relaxed on Saturday mornings, the stress and turmoil of the previous work week far behind, the Monday morning blahs of the coming week far enough ahead not to threaten my bliss.
But this day I am particularly pleased, taking a moment to reflect on a small part of my life that brings back painful and poignant memories but current pleasure and pride. I have just read that the Christiansburg High Blue Demons beat the Pulaski County High Cougars 41-28 in football last night, finishing the regular season 9-1, one of the most successful seasons in school history. I played on one team that was 1- 9.
I follow the scores of the Blue Demons on the Internet in the fall (and the odd 2020 partial season played in the spring of 2021) and via text from my friend Greg, not living in the area to be able to listen on radio or attend in person. I have enjoyed tracking the scores this season: CHS 49 Blacksburg 0, CHS 63 Radford 0, soundly trouncing the Roanoke schools, Patrick Henry and Cave Spring, and some school called Hidden Valley (so well hidden I have no idea where it is), the only blemish being a loss to Salem, a team which I understand almost never loses to anybody.
I have no current connection to the team or the school, but I have written frequently about my family history with CHS, my dad having been principal there for many years, my aunt having taught government and English there for 40 years, many aunts and uncles and cousins having graduated from there. So I feel I am entitled to relish the moment.
For goodness sake, the team now plays on “Evans King Field,” named for my dad in 2000, the year after his death. I tell my friends in West Virginia that it was so named because of my sterling career as an outside linebacker for the Blue Demons in 1969 and 1970. I hope this paper has no circulation in north central West Virginia.
My history goes way back. My dad sat me on the bench between the team doctors when I was as young as 3 years old, during the time when he literally would turn the Friday Night lights on and turn the Friday Night lights off. I rarely if ever missed a game until I went away to college, playing five years for the Blue Demons myself.
Reflecting on last night’s victory and the successful season, I thought it would be great fun to write a column on CHS football, some statistics, some trivia, some minutiae. My source for the stats is a wonderful website I came across a few years ago – fourseasonsfootball.com – a season-by-season compilation of scores, names of coaches and occasional notes, for current and historical schools in the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, Kentucky, and Ohio. It is truly a fascinating resource for a sports nerd like me with no life.
First, some stats. Christiansburg High’s all-time record in football is 428-516-35, a winning percentage of .454. The school’s first game ever was on October 23, 1914, a 9-0 loss at Blacksburg. The first win ever was November 25, 1914, an 18-0 home win over Pulaski. Interestingly, these were the only two games that season, or at least the only two reported.
On October 26, 1922, CHS beat “Riner,” apparently the predecessor to Auburn High and probably the alma mater of my mother and her sisters. I do not know for sure whether it was Riner High or Auburn High when they graduated. Auburn High itself did not take up football until 1976, again according to my source, and the 1922 contest is the only reported game between the high schools in that part of the county and Christiansburg High.
CHS’s all-time record against hated rival Blacksburg is 38-56-, with one of the ties being among the more infamous games in Montgomery County sports history. In 1963, CHS and BHS played to a 7-7 tie in the last game of the season with the Blue Demons entering the game 8-1 and the Indians 8-0-1, so the tie gave the New River District championship to BHS. The papers the next day read “Blacksburg beats Christiansburg 7-7” (literary license here), much like the more famous “Harvard beats Yale 29-29” headline in 1968. Look it up.
I was 10 years old at the time of that historic Nov. 8,1963, game, and was forced to sit on the Blacksburg side for one half because my Dad was county superintendent of schools and required to show some degree of impartiality. This requirement was “waived” by Curtis “Ducky” Gray, principal of Blacksburg High when I was playing later for the Blue Demons. Legend also has it that the Blue Demons suffered their one loss in 1963 (to Giles) only because our star player was suspended for a driving offense (or six). My cousin Bobby was a senior that year and a friend of the star, so I think this story is accurate. Bobby was probably in the car.
A few more interesting facts about CHS football. The team was coached in 1928 and 1929 by Bentley Hite, later a prominent lawyer in town for many years and a leading community citizen. His 1928 team went 6-0 in the regular season, losing to Big Stone Gap in something known as the “Southwest Va. Championship.” My father and his twin brothers Clyde and Cline played around this time. Mr. Hite also coached the CHS boxing team during these years. Who knew there was one?
On a (considerably) lesser note, one of the King twins, my Uncle Cline, coached the team in the 1938 and 1939 seasons, going 0-8 each year. My Dad was principal at this time, so I guess he had the ignominious responsibility of telling his brother, “Cline, we need to make a change.” Before looking at fourseasonsfootball.com, I did not know that Cline had been the coach (if you’re 0-16 I guess you don’t talk about it a lot), although I do remember my Dad telling a story of his brother betting the team that he could “run circles around the whole lot of them” and then literally doing so, in a sprint from one goal line to the other. More on Cline and his twin later.
Until 1966, the schools in Montgomery County were segregated, and the African-American kids in Christiansburg, as well as from several surrounding counties, attended Christiansburg Institute, or Christiansburg Industrial Institute as it was known in its later years. The school was frequently referred to as CII and was near the site of the current Christiansburg High. Booker T. Washington played an important role in the development and direction of the institute, which itself played a significant part in the history of Montgomery County.
CII had its own sports teams and played football against other black schools in the state. Going from memory, the school colors were green and gold and the teams were known as the Tigers. The marching band was legendary. I remember their performances in the town Christmas parades when I was very young.
This all changed in the fall of my eighth grade year, which at that time was the first year of high school. Our schools were desegregated and combined. As a result, the first African-American varsity football players at CHS became James “Chuckie” Anderson and brothers Earl and Marshall Carter (of the wonderful Carter family. I later played with their younger brother, Jerry, one of the best players ever at CHS. Their youngest brother Harold was a star basketball player at CHS in the mid 70’s.)
The eighth grade team I played on that momentous year included five African-American players: Tony Price, Alan Johnson, Spencer Flippens, Cortez McDaniel, and John Hairston. They were my teammates throughout our CHS years and an important part of CHS football history. I also need to mention the African-American guys who played on the CHS jayvee team that year: Jerome “Michelle” Robinson, Ernie Morgan, Garnett Franklin, Gratton Moore, and Willy Alexandria.
It took a lot of courage for these kids to come into an all-white school and join these teams, but I think it went relatively smoothly. I know our eighth grade team had great times and benefited from the experiences, particularly the volunteer coaching of Omar Ross.
Now a little Blue Demon minutiae, some involving family history. The school fight song, “Oh CHS is Just the School for Me,” is to the tune of the Washington & Lee Swing, apparently borrowed from the college down the road. (When I was a small kid, I thought the lyric “C’burg High” was “Siebern High” and had something to do with Norm Siebern, a backup first baseman for the New York Yankees at the time. I never claimed to be a genius.)
The nickname “Blue Demons” according to King family lore resulted from the exploits of my uncles Clyde and Cline on the gridiron. My dad told the story that his twin brothers were the best athletes in the family and were star running backs at CHS. At that time, the sports teams at CHS were known as the Wildcats. In a big game against one of the Roanoke schools, the twins starred, running up and down the field in their blue jerseys. A reporter for the Roanoke paper wrote the next day that the “King twins played like blue demons.” Again per my dad, the name stuck.
I would love to verify. At this time, all I can say is why let facts get in the way of a good story.
One more fun family fact. My cousin Joe Board reportedly scored five touchdowns in one game against Radford, although the Bobcats won 41-31. Joe is certainly one of the best players in school history, if not the best, but I am biased.
Over the years there have been hosts of Griffiths and Epperlys and Carters and Franklins on the Blue Demon rosters. One of the beauties of high school football in small town America has always been family legacy.
There have also been many great men who coached at CHS over the years, several of whom I knew and played for and many of whom I remember simply because of my dad’s stories. During my dad’s early years as teacher and principal at the school, the Blue Demon teams were coached by Tex Tilson and Bob Lawson and Bob Gerald and the legendary Boodie Albert (unfortunately, Boodie only coached one year at CHS and went on to make his legend at Covington High in a highly successful 33-year career).
Later, my dad as principal and then superintendent started a long line of Emory & Henry coaches: Buddy Earp and Omar Ross and Curt Campbell and Joe Rusek and Doug Greene and Phil Robbins, affectionately known as the “Wasp Mafia.” In recent years, Mike Cole and Tim Cromer and now Alex Wilkens have been highly successful coaches of CHS. I even learned from my research that my Dad’s great friend, Icky Pharis, coached the team in 1925 and 1926. Apologies to anyone I left out.
I hope this little piece of Christiansburg history was fun to read. It was great fun to research and write. And congrats and good luck to the current Blue Demons. You stand on the shoulders of my uncles, Clyde and Cline. Maybe.
Evans “Buddy” King is a proud native of Christiansburg, CHS Class of 1971. He resides in Clarksburg, W.Va., where he has practiced law with the firm of Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC, since 1980. He can be reached at evans.king@steptoe-johnson.com.
