The rivalry remains the same
LINEVILLE — From the front porch of the Twin Oaks Assisted Living Facility, Harold “Buster” Parker's bright blue eyes see the buzz of game day at Lineville High School. At 89, Parker feels too old to make it less than a mile to the game. Instead, he'll bring the game into his living room via his radio. Parker's memory sometimes plays tricks on him, but he remembers his first Lineville-Ashland game, the second Clay Bowl. It was 1923, and the game was played on the old Lineville fairgrounds. “My father was a rabid football fan and carried me to all the games,” Parker said. There wasn't a stadium or grandstands for the game, just some phone poles set up to mark the sidelines. From then until World War II, Parker didn't miss a game. “The war took that away,” Parker said. The 1942 game was the last one he saw for five years, because he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. After the war, Parker moved to Georgia for a year before returning home. For the next 57 years, he didn't miss a Clay Bowl. The Clay Bowl has been played for 84 years — 97 games, including playoffs. The players have gotten bigger, the bands louder, but one thing remains unchanged: the rivalry. “The interest of the people, the dedication to the school, it's been about the same,” said 67-year-old Robert Street, who has spent his whole life in Ashland and has missed, perhaps, one Clay Bowl. “You've never seen a rivalry until you've seen Clay County and Lineville,” said Ronald Smith, 49, and also of Ashland. Smith was at the field's gate by noon this year. He has never missed a Clay Bowl, asserting, “That's just ungodly.” The reason the rivalry is so big is that “family gets family,” Smith said. Children's loyalties split between the Lineville and Ashland schools. Last year Matt and Wes Campbell, brothers from Ashland, played side by side in the Clay Bowl against their cousin from Lineville. Jane Alexander, 69, of Lineville, went through a relationship struggle of her own. She attended high school and was a cheerleader in Ashland, but she married a Lineville man. “The year Jerry and I got married, I sat by the goal pole at Ashland,” Alexander said as she popped roasted peanuts in her mouth. “He told me that I couldn't sit on the Ashland side, but I couldn't sit on the Lineville side.” One thing that has affected the intensity of the rivalry is the time of year the game is played. Until 1965, the Clay Bowl, known then as the Turkey Bowl, fell on Thanksgiving. Unlike the modern game, the teams would not play for weeks leading up to it. The rivalry would build. “It's not all-or-nothing anymore,” said 60-year-old John Wheeles, from a table at Little's Exxon in Ashland. Wheeles can count on one hand the Clay Bowls he has missed. He thinks that moving the game to midseason took “a little of the emotions out of it.” The Turkey Bowl was the big social event of the year. Fans would dress up in hats, high heels and mink coats (if they had them) to watch the game. “You had to eat early in the morning because everyone would be at the game,” said Matt Alexander, a 63-year-old Lineville fan and a relative to Jane Alexander by marriage.
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She remembers when she was in high school and was one of about six girls who painted Lineville's water tank during the Clay Bowl week. Back then, students met at the double bridges between Ashland and Lineville. They dared each other to cross, and then fought when they did. Along with fighting and painting, students were known for throwing rotten eggs and vegetables, burning the other team's bonfires, dumping slop on cheerleaders and cutting down decorations. Sometimes the pranks got a little out of hand. Ron Smith remembers his dad telling him about one Clay Bowl prank in the late 1940s. The Lineville coach was on a ladder stringing black and red streamers on a traffic light downtown. An Ashlander drove through and “had to run down the ladder,” Smith said. “The last sight in the mirror was the coach falling off.” His dad also told him, “If you lost the game, you was gonna win the fight.” Paul Dick was principal of Clay County High School from 1974-1993. He remembers pranks pulled over the years, by each school, but will never forget the 1974 Clay Bowl, one of two he has missed. Dick was home relaxing after a pep rally. He got a call that the school had been egged, so he went to clean it up. When he finished cleaning, he went inside for a drink. Then he heard the school being egged again. After cleaning the mess, Dick flagged down passing cars and told the pranksters to go home. While throwing an egg, one driver swerved and struck Dick, knocking him about 30 feet. The accident resulted in a broken leg for Dick and extensive knee surgery. “I tried to slow down and contain the students driving back and forth late at night and from getting hurt,” Dick said. “I never thought it would be me getting hurt.” Whether the rivalry goes deeper into the community than just football may never be known. Students from the rival schools date, and some marry. But Wendy Ryhal, 19, a student at Clay County, doesn't think she could do something like that. “Unless they're family, we don't have anything to do with them,” she said. Football is a big deal in Clay County. “It's a way of life here,” said Wheeles, leaning back in his seat at the table in Little's. Wheeles is in a group of men that meets at Little's most mornings to chew the fat. By the end of summer, these men look at the calendar, counting the days until football season starts. Wheeles is a devoted Panther fan, but he doesn't hold a grudge against Lineville folks. In fact, he couldn't get away from work to stake out a seat at the game, so he had a friend from Lineville placed a blanket on the Clay County side of the stands for him. Maybe Buster Parker's gaze reached to the end zone of Lineville High School's field. There, five boys, about Parker's age in 1923, wrestle for a miniature football. Their Aggie shirts are streaked from tumbles in the dirt and grass. The children narrowly dodge passing fans as they rush each other for the ball. “Tackle me!” one of them screams. He is immediately buried under four small bodies. Contact Deirdre M. Nunan at dmnunan@bama.ua.edu or 241-1950.
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