The Final Horne: Sports Illustrated profiles Fort Campbell Football

By James D. Horne | October 18, 2012 |

In most of the United States, parents can usually attend their son’s local high school football games. On the military base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, that luxury can be snatched away without warning. Fort Campbell High is the school of students living on a military base. Day to day, the Falcon players face dealing with deployment, injury, and even the loss of family members. As a result, several players must fill in the void often left by the demands of military life. The boys live a regimented lifestyle and must be resilient to cope with the unpredictability of military life. (Photo by sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1210/hs-underdogs-9/content.1.html#ixzz29fdxQDaN

Sports Illustrated has done a wonderful story on the Fort Campbell High School Football program and coach Sean Berner in their online web series called ‘Underdogs: Inspiring Stories in High School Football”. The links are below.

It’s easy to forget that every child who goes to that that high school — and the elementary and middle schools — have a parent or parents who have been deployed, possibly injured or given the ultimate sacrifice of their life for our freedoms.

Fort Campbell is currently ranked No. 6 in Class 3A in Kentucky, is 6-2 overall and 3-0 and in first place in District 1. This Friday the Falcons host Heath for Homecoming.

Last year, the Falcons advanced to the Class 3A semifinals before losing to eventual state champion Central and in the first year of the new classifications in Kentucky.

Fort Campbell also won three straight Class 2A State Championships in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Highlighted in the story are coach Berner, volunteer Gerard Counts, Tristan Luke, Drayton Simmons and Coty Hix.

Luke is the team’s standout sophomore running back and really helps shape why he loves Fort Campbell High School

But the most special parts of the story are on Hix and especially Simmons and his family.

We all have our crap that we think we deal with everyday and think is so important, after watching this and what Simmons and his family — and his injured mother, a solider — go through without complaining and how the football team has accepted his little brother, you’ll realize that you really don’t have that bad.

And if you have a child or a loved one you’ve been separated from for any period of time, you’ll know understand the pain a father and son share when they have to be apart because of deployment.

It’s a great story and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to Donnie Caver for sending me the link.

Sports Illustrated

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