By Rubin E. Grant Pleasant Grove football coach Jim Elgin had no idea attending one of his son’s baseball games in the spring would lead to such a poignant event as the one the Spartans had Friday. Elgin’s son Scott plays baseball for Hoover High School and was a teammate of former Buc Ben Abercrombie’s on the Bucs’ 2017 Class 7A championship team. Elgin showed up for the … [Read more...]
Regaining Confidence: Spain Park Coach Pushing Players to Overcome Three Losses Before the Playoffs
By Blake Ells Spain Park has known its postseason plans for a few weeks, which could be to blame for late season complacency and losses to Hoover, Mountain Brook and Oak Mountain. In its final region game against Mountain Brook, the Jaguars had five turnovers. “Against a team like Oak Mountain that eats up the clock, you don’t get many opportunities on offense,” said head … [Read more...]
‘It’s Still a Big Rivalry’: Passionate Hoover-Vestavia Hills Football Game Takes Center Stage Again
By Rubin E. Grant In the book “Tales from Alabama Prep Football,” Buddy Anderson described his introduction to the Vestavia Hills-Berry football rivalry. “Vestavia opened in 1970 and most of the kids who came to Vestavia had been going to Berry,” Anderson recalled. “We opened the ’72 season against Berry and they had a good team. We had some players who had a choice that … [Read more...]
7 Up: Spain Park’s Braxton Barker Follows in His Father’s Footsteps
By Blake Ells Hoover needed some late heroics to survive their cross-town rival on Sept. 15. They got it in the form of a play with 1:18 left on the clock. Quarterback Jalen Parker connected with Shedrick Jackson on a 25-yard touchdown to capture a victory over No. 6 Spain Park. Despite coming up short in the 24-27 game, Jaguars’ quarterback Braxton Barker rolled up big … [Read more...]
OTM Students Named National Merit Semifinalists
On Sept. 13, 16,000 students were named semifinalists in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Corp. competition, which awards approximately 7,500 scholarships each year. The list included a number of Over the Mountain students, each recognized as being among the highest-scoring students out of the 1.6 million high school juniors who took the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit … [Read more...]