Ed Martin
It must have been just before Thanksgiving 2005. Our coach was concerned that we eighth graders were going to be lazy and lose our conditioning over the long weekend, so we practiced for an extra hour.
In that hour I can distinctly remember 10 hellish minutes, all focused around a line no more than 2 inches wide. Our coach had us slalom in our shoes, across that line, for 10 minutes. If we didn’t go fast enough, the clock restarted. My legs burned, my ears pounded, sweat burned my eyes, and I hated nothing more than that inanimate marking on the hardwood floor. I wanted to beat that line more than anything.
Let’s flash forward to this year. In the weeks preceding the pep rally game, I was reminded to no end how the teachers were “going down.” The majority of this chirping came from Hugh Lory.
Allow me to point to some facts. The average age of the student team was between 17 and 18. The average age of the teacher team was 30+ (which I am told is all you need to know). Their team featured several varsity athletes. The teacher team featured some players who haven’t played a varsity sport since well before you were born.
So, with a clear age and physical condition edge, the question is: How did they possibly lose?
Some may point fingers at the officiating, which was shoddy, but it was not a lower quality than what I see at girls and boys games weekly at the school. Others may highlight how the best athletes were not allowed to play in the game, another decision I stand by as a coach myself. But I think it was much simpler than that.
The teachers won because we wanted it more. Plain and simple. And I think it boils back to how we were coached as young athletes and the attitude that we brought to practices and games every day.
If you sit in my room, at least twice a day you can hear an athlete saying how they’re tired, or how they’re worried about an opponent they have to face that night. Have I ever been tired? Sure, but I knew for as tired as I was, there was someone out there I would come across on a field or a court that was more tired.
Were we scared of opponents? Never. We respected the good teams and players but we were never convinced they were better than us.
Back to the line twelve years ago, I think that was the forming of my grit as an athlete. I wouldn’t allow a line to be better than me, but I knew in that gym, and in many other gyms across the county, that 2 inch line had been victorious many a time. But not this time. Even today I take the philosophy into the weight room as I prepare for my upcoming wedding. I won’t let some piece of iron defeat me. So I don’t hold coffee shop court when I go to the gym, like many do. I go to out-work and out-sweat everyone in the room. I think many of my colleagues can relate to this mentality.
To the team about to play us a second time, I applaud you. I love the idea. I respect what you will do with the proceeds. I respect your ability as young athletes. But let me be clear, I fear you no more than I fear the two inch line.

Hugh Lory
You may remember on Oct 7, we all celebrated pep rally with the main event being the Senior vs Teacher basketball game. Think back to when the game was completely rigged and trashed us seniors last pep rally, but we aren’t going to let that get to us, so we’ve challenged the teachers to a rematch. A rematch that would settle it all, a rematch that would be fair, a rematch that have refs that have 20/20 eyesight, and don’t have dreams of making seniors last pep rally a disaster. This will be the most hype basketball game to happen since 2015 when Hereford took down Dulaney.
This is something all the seniors want, we need to redeem ourselves even though we shouldn’t have to. We gave the teachers their moment of fame, but this is ours, this is our time to show them who should have been the real victors in the first game. After all the blood, sweat, and tears are over with, the teachers won’t know what hit them. We are going to harass them so hard, they are going to go home and cry and think about what just happened.
At that moment the teachers will know what hit them, they will know who the alpha males, and females, in the school really are. We will outrun them so bad they will wish they never showed up to Hereford High on the day of Oct 7, and my dear friend Edward Martin will forget about that two inch line he once saw in his younger days.
Some may ask, how do a bunch of high school varsity athletes lose to a bunch of teachers that haven’t moved a muscle like that in years? Well first of all, we students weren’t in our rec basketball season, so we were all rusty. Secondly, I shouldn’t have to say it again but those refs…. Oh those refs. I have many adjectives to describe them that they have probably never even heard before.
Let’s get away from the fact that we seniors did in fact take the teachers for granted and thought it would be an easy win. They showed us wrong, but I’m telling you know I am guaranteeing a win this time for the seniors. We may have had some weak points in our game plan but not this time, this time is going to be totally different, this time we have a real game plan, a game plan that will be no match for the teachers. We are going to exploit their flaws worse than the students exploited the flaws in the new grading system.
We are driven for success, and we won’t be stopped. If the teachers are the victors in the end, so be it, but we will not go down without a fight. We will do whatever it takes to get the W at the end of the night, and I mean anything. This will be uglier than the little dance Mr. Brown performed during the game.
We may not have the original team we did from the first game, but this time we have a secret weapon, and we are not afraid to use it. You teachers may try to take some of our best players, but you can’t take away our dignity, you can’t take away our will to fight till the end. So, be aware because you’re going to witness something you never thought would happen.