As I was sitting at halftime in Eclectic on Friday night, I was scrolling through X looking for scores for all of the teams in Elmore County. I looked up Kamarri Darrington’s account – one of our freelancers – and saw that Edgewood Academy was in a power outage that lasted nearly 90 minutes.
I thought to myself, “Thank God I’m not there tonight.”
Then as the third quarter started winding down, I watched Elmore County’s football team start sprinting to the locker room. My first thought was that there must have been a lightning strike somewhere close and the game was about to go into a delay.
I was wrong.
The announcer quickly told everyone to evacuate the stadium and to go home immediately. I was standing on Tallassee’s sideline at the time taking photos, and the team was just as confused as me.
The Tigers were quickly told what was going on, however, and rushed to their locker room.
I jogged back across the football field to pick up my camera bag, and ran into ECHS coach Kyle Caldwell who told me to come into the locker room with Elmore County’s team.
There, I sat with the Panthers — players, coaches, a few younger students and family members — as we tried to figure out exactly what was going on.
Turns out it was a shooting threat.
I sat in the locker room with Elmore County for the next 45 minutes or so before the game was officially suspended and everyone started to leave.
As I think back on the events that took place on Burt-Haynie Field on Friday, I couldn’t be happier with the way it was handled by both communities, schools and coaching staffs.
As soon as officials heard that there was a threat, Elmore County principal Jason Eason was informed of the situation. They decided to instantly postpone the game and send everyone home, which was 100% the correct choice. No matter if there was a real threat or not, it’s not worth taking that risk and everyone knew that.
There was no panic involved either. The PA got everyone out calmly and safely. It was run beautifully, all things considered. There were possible plans to finish the football game after everyone left with no fans in the stands, but it did not happen.
With the game no longer being a region game — Tallassee is in Class 4A and Elmore County in 5A — the game did not matter as far as playoff implications go. The coaches thought about rescheduling the game, but there are no open dates on the schedules that work with each other.
So the game was suspended and went down as a no contest.
Both coaches were saddened, and Tallassee coach Lawrence “L.A.” O’Neal posted on Facebook about it Saturday and thanked everyone involved for keeping the kids safe.
“You Right I’m mad, disgusted, & disappointed. My Kids practice hard all week for a opportunity to go out & play a game that they love, to compete in front of their friends & family, to enjoy the contest between rivals all to have the actions of a few rob them of that opportunity. To see the disappointed & pain in their eyes is very heartbreaking. I say this Tigers Keep your heads Up!!! Thank You for the swift response from Authorities & Big Thank You to Law Enforcement, The Administration Teams, Support Staff, Parents, & Fans for ensuring that All The Students, Band Members, Cheerleaders, Dance Teams, & Athletes were safe & secure,” O’Neal posted.
I saw another Facebook post over the weekend that really stuck out to me. Catherine Barker Davis posted that during the exit, her son went around and picked up items in the stands that were left during the hecticness.
She received more than 30 comments — some thanking her son — about items they left and she was able to get them their items that were left in the stadium.
It’s stuff like that kid’s actions that are what people should look upon in moments like this. There are people handling these events with grace, and that was certainly evident on Friday.
Dalton Middleton is the sports editor of Tallapoosa Publishers Inc.’s Elmore County newspapers.
