SEC Legends Doug Dickey and Vince Dooley congratulate the Collinsvillle Panthers 1968

        Ive been meaning to tell this story for about three years, hoping to get paid about 200 dollars for it but the county papers don't have the sense to offer some chump change that will sell extra copies all by it's lonesome.

     My key source on this tale is Jerry Traffanstedt of the Collinsville Traffansteins, the brother of the mayor and twin of Town Force Jane Simpson.

    Jerry T was a tenth grader the fall of 1968 when they played Valley Head. They play again tonight but it was the game 50 years ago I'm talking about.

   According to Jerry, VH was loaded. Their QB Charles Carden, later to marry into the the august Gilbreath Clan and their Grain Silo downtown Collinsville, was sought after all over the South. Noonie Guinn was also on the team who went to Purdue and seven other players got college Scholarships that year 68-69 At Valley Head.

     VH was about 5 TD favorites. Doug Dickey head coach of Tennessee where Carden later matriculated for one year, and Vince Dooley of Herschel Walkers Georgia Bulldogs were in town scouting Carden.

   But the scrawny Panthers of Collinsville, only one senior on the team, put up a fight, a valiant effort and only lost 21-7.

   In a highlight of that squads year and lifetime, both Dooley and Dickey came on the Collinsville bus after the game to give them applause for their valiant effort being such underdogs.

    Also on the team with Jerry Tee that year was Sammy Pinto Beene, a Tenth Grader. I asked Several of his sons if he ever said anything about that game. Pinto, an unassuming fellow to this day, the boys say never said much about anything. Most he said about his HS career is people thought he was faster than he actually was; as I said an humble fellow.


    He was kind a slight likely less than 140 pounds if that in his playing days. The wind couldn't put up much of a resistance and he sailed right through apparently when he had the ball.

   Others on that team were Johnny Mack Edwards who had three boys who all went to Auburn, one of whom made the squad as a walkon and another coaching tonight for the Panthers, known to attend some summer Coaching Clinics with the Furman staff.

   James Spade and Curtis Williams were two Black players on that team a couple years after integration for Collinsville, and I think Jerry said a Bobo was the QB.

  Collinsville has only lost one game this year, blowing most teams away in the first quarter like Bama. Tonight should be No different, but nobody is expecting the likes of Dickey and Dooley in town tonight.

   I have contacted Furman about Myles Underwood, distant kin of Willie who was at Clemson on the field the night of the Woody Hayes incident in the Gator Bowl. I think Danny Ford was coaching that year, in fact almost sure of it.

     And telling Carson Newman about Caleb Jones the Shane Barkley's kid.