For The Town

The Football Team rallies around the community before the annual Soldier Tribute Game
By: Ben Elliott

About a month ago I gave a speech to the football team during their Thursday night pregame meal before a road tilt with Spotswood. Amongst a sea of Johnny Cash quotes, I tried my very best to highlight what is most special about, not only Broadway football, but BHS athletics as a whole. As we prepare for Friday night's annual Soldier Tribute game, the sentiments of the speech I gave relate directly to our special event coming up on Friday night. 
​
Before every home football game, the team honors a separate group of our community. Whether it be our youth football players, teachers, survivors of both childhood cancer and breast cancer and our final event of every year, Soldier Tribute. As I was reflecting on how special my time with the football team was, what I missed the most about being on the team, second to coaching our athletes of course, was the mutual love and respect from our community. 

Broadway is a very, very special place. We get turnout for home and road games like no other. The Happy Valley in the Valley if you will. Each game that you play here holds a certain importance. You’re playing for our future athletes that look up to the players as larger than life heroes. You give everything in honor of our teachers, whom of which I can list about a hundred of, that I still look up to till this day. Most importantly, we play to honor the memory of those we’ve lost. Whether it be from various forms of cancer, or from serving our nation. 
It’s different, truly different. 

From the heartfelt connection to the overall atmosphere of the nights in which we get to honor our beloved community, I’m telling you right now, if you can make it Friday night, you need to do so. 

Those are all the emotions we see from outside the locker room walls, but, I and hundreds if not thousands of others can attest that, the leadup to the Soldier Tribute game is special. A big picture of a smiling Bucky Anderson pointing up to the camera will sit in the entrance way to the locker room, the gear he wore in his final moments, displayed in a special locker. The locker, typically the 21st, also holds his football and state championship winning wrestling gear. Those momentos look over us as we go through our weekly game prep. 

My favorite part of this entire week, other than winning the actual game itself and the pre-game motorcade, is the pre-game speech in the locker room the moments before you run up the hill to the field. A speech combination from both coaches and comrades of Bucky, always always sent chills down my spine, and even tears to my eyes. It perfectly encapsulates why this game is so important to our entire community. It lets people, like my Vietnam veteran grandfather’s legacy, live on through the play on the field and the salute to service so to speak. 

The last thing I will leave you with in this shorter style article is this, 
Coach Grogg always tells us before the game, “The number 21 will show up on the scoreboard at some point throughout the game tonight,”. 

I miss you all dearly my friends, it was great to talk to you again. Both of the fall sports we cover here at the Gobblers Sports Network are absolutely killing it. The volleyball team has clinched a playoff spot, and our football team is 5-3 with a great opportunity to go 7-3 and contest for a close playoff race! I will have a more thorough detail of each team's season coming up in late November/early December! 
Until we speak again my friends! Go Gobblers!

Bucky Anderson's locker in the BHS Football locker room.

The BHS Football Team in their special Soldier Tribute Uniforms in 2023.