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Through the mud, JM came out clean FOOTBALL

December 5, 2008 12:36 am

BY RICH CAMPBELL

Mark Lineburg awoke on the morning of Dec. 7, 1996, when his father, Norman, threw open the curtains in his Fredericksburg hotel room. The weather outside was frightful. Make that a nightmare.

His heart sank.

"It was absolutely just pouring, snowing and sleeting," he said.

It was supposed to be a glorious day, the day on which his Brookville football team played for the program's first state championship. James Monroe stood in the Bees' path, and now, it seemed, the weather did, too.

"You can't play this game in these conditions," said Norman, whose insistence carried the weight of 34 years of head-football coaching experience.

But Lineburg, Brookville's 27-year-old head coach at the time, believed his team would prevail, regardless. Besides, this was the state championship. There's no bigger game. Surely, it couldn't be postponed.

So Brookville and James Monroe slogged through a quagmire at Spotsylvania High that afternoon. Steady rain that began the three days earlier transformed what was expected to be a thrilling matchup between James Monroe's speedsters and the Bees' brawn into a three-way Battle Royal between both teams and Mother Nature.

By the time both teams found refuge from the elements, only the Yellow Jackets could get warm.

Backup running back Shannon Wallace capitalized on his only carry of the game, which he earned after star running back Trell Parker left temporarily to have mud cleaned from his eyes. Wallace scored a 36-yard touchdown in the third quarter, lifting James Monroe to a 7-0 win and the program's third state championship.

Tomorrow's rematch between James Monroe and Brookville elicited memories this week of that hypothermic afternoon 12 years ago.

Three yards and a pile of mud

The adjectives that surfaced during interviews of several players and coaches on both sides depict the misery both teams endured: Messy. Sloppy. Foul. Mushy. Atrocious. Miserable. God-awful.

You get the idea. It was the type of day reserved for fireplaces and hot chocolate.

"I don't know that the talent of either team could have been displayed given the conditions," said Steve Dials, then the athletic director at Spotsylvania and the game director. "Anyone in the stands who liked the old '3 yards and a pile of mud'--there certainly was no dust--was probably thrilled."

James Monroe entered the championship on a 12-game winning streak after losing its season-opener. Parker, a senior, was the offensive star. His 2,760 rushing yards that year still stand as the 10th-best single-season total in state history.

Brookville was also 12-1. Tailback Peter Givens had rushed for more than 1,000 yards that season, and tight end James Lomax had already accepted a scholarship to Virginia Tech.

The Yellow Jackets ran the I-formation that year, not their current spread offense. But speed, as usual, was their forte.

That didn't exactly bode well on a field holding 2 inches of standing water on more than half of the surface.

"It took away our speed," James Monroe coach Rich Serbay said. "We had more speed than them, so it turned out to be a slugfest between the tackles."

As expected, both teams struggled to move the ball. They combined for 11 punts, six fumbles and only 263 yards of total offense.

Brookville, however, drove inside James Monroe's 10-yard line three separate times. Two of those drives ended with missed field goals.

Givens had only 38 yards on 16 carries, while Lomax was held to three catches for 8 yards.

"If it wasn't 2 inches of standing water, it was 2 inches deep of mud," said Brookville's Jeff Woody, a senior receiver in 1996 and the team's current head coach. "It stalemated our running game. Our strength was our offensive line, and they weren't able to do anything with the defensive line of James Monroe."

The Yellow Jackets faced the same obstacles. They moved the ball into Brookville territory only twice--on their first drive of the game and the touchdown drive.

"There wasn't really much traction, so everything was pretty much straight ahead," said Parker, who managed 96 yards on 29 carries. "There wasn't too much cutting or anything like that."

James Monroe standout defensive tackle R.C. Griffin didn't seem to mind the conditions. Woody recalled how Griffin dominated defensive front.

"It was tough with the footing because it was a downpour out there," Griffin said. "As the game went on, you made your adjustments and still find a way to come off the ball with 100 percent effort."

Wallace scored the decisive touchdown with a minute remaining in the third quarter.

Parker went to the sideline to get cleaned up and restore his vision. He got it back in time to see Wallace burst up the middle through a hole opened by fullback James Hull. Wallace, a junior who mainly played defensive back, covered the last few yards with Brookville defenders on his back.

"Once I got through the line, all I saw was green, water and mud," Wallace said after the game.

Warmed by a score

Considering both teams' offensive woes and the condition of the field, the Yellow Jackets' seven-point lead felt much larger.

"Once we got on the board, nobody cared about the rain or the cold," Serbay said. "You put seven points on the board, and it kind of warms you up real quick."

The Yellow Jackets then sealed the victory with two key plays. They stopped Brookville on fourth-and-2 from the James Monroe 5-yard line, and lineman George Mullins later recovered a fumble.

"I don't think we did much celebrating," Parker said. "We tried to get to the locker room as quick as possible and get all of that wet clothing off and get in the shower."

James Monroe won its third state championship in a span of 11 years. Serbay called it his sweetest title because he had grown close to a senior class with which he spent five years and struggled through a 2-8 campaign three seasons prior.

The Bees were devastated. They fell to 0-3 in state championship games and wondered if the outcome might have been different under better weather conditions.

"The state championship game should be a showcase of the best talent, and certainly that game was not that," said Lineburg, who left Brookville before it won the 1999 state title and now works as an administrator for Amherst County Schools. "I've moved on with my life, and I've had a lot of good things in my life, but there will always be a touch of bitterness there. But [James Monroe] deserved to win the game. They outplayed us that day. It was raining on their side of the field, too."

Ah yes, the field. That poor field.

Destroyed by the game

It was destroyed that afternoon. At game's end, there was no visible grass in the 80-yard stretch between the 10-yard lines, according to Dials. The team areas were entirely mud.

Spotsylvania had placed Bermuda sod on its field two years earlier, but that was ruined. The cost of repairing the field was at least $7,000, Dials recalled, and that didn't include replacing the Bermuda grass, which was never done.

The Virginia High School League contributed some money for repairs, and Fredericksburg City Schools paid $3,000, according to a most-appreciative Dials, who is now a guidance counselor at Fredericksburg Christian School. The Spotsylvania School Board and the high school athletic department covered the remaining costs.

Spotsylvania planted grass seed later that December and covered the field with thermal blankets to promote growth. When the spring season arrived, the field "looked like it had a Mohawk haircut," Dials said.

He maintains that the field has not recovered to this day, and that patches of Bermuda grass are all that remain. He also recalled a member of James Monroe's band losing the mouthpiece of her clarinet in a postgame celebration near midfield, and he believes it remains buried at least a foot under the surface.

Two years later, the VHSL began scheduling state championship games at bigger sites, many of which are college stadiums that have artificial grassy turf. VHSL Director Ken Tilley said yesterday that weather was one of several factors in making that switch, and that the James Monroe-Brookville game was taken into consideration.

Tomorrow's rematch is at Liberty University's Williams Stadium, which has an artificial grass surface. Parker, Griffin and Lineburg each said they are planning to attend, while Serbay and Woody will be on opposite sidelines.

"I hope the weather holds up this year," Griffin said.

Rich Campbell: 540/735-1974
Email: rcampbell@freelancestar.com