By MONTE DUTTON

Note the lead blocking of quarterback Tushawan Richardson (1) in Devin Swindler’s eight-yard reverse in the second quarter (Monte Dutton photos).

Upon awakening on Thursday morning, my mind was racing. Sometimes I get up feeling as if I need to write it down before I forget it.
Of course, I used the restroom first.
Of all things, I thought of the Duke of Wellington, who said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on “the playing fields of Eton.” Eton is a school with sports. Waterloo was fought in 1815.
Some things never change. Athletics should exist to prepare its participants for success later in life.
Clinton High School won its ninth football state championship on Thursday afternoon, 35-6, over Barnwell. Nothing that big happened to Clinton on a Thursday since Presbyterian College stopped playing Newberry on Thanksgiving.

The Red Devils conquered Class 2A in their first season in it. And how. It was the widest Clinton margin in a state championship game, 29 points, since the 1985 version beat Middleton, 30-0. The all-time widest margin was 32-0 over Hanahan in 1972.
What prompted me to think about the old remark of a hero was one of Clinton head coach Corey Fountain’s favorite topics: practice. He believes in playing the games one at a time and practicing the practices one at a time. He wants to go 1-0 every day and every game.

That’s got to be way up in the hundreds by now. Take his whole career, and, sakes alive, it’s thousands. His players believe him. They talk about it the same way.
I tip my hat. I never did anything but dread practices.
“Those guys have put in work since they were playing in middle school,” Fountain said. “Coming over, working in the weight room, and you could see that weight room paid off today.
“It takes buy-in. It takes buy-in from all these coaches, all these players, and the work was awesome.”

(I’m gonna get around to the game here directly.)
There can be no disputing that Clinton is the ruler of Class 2A. The Red Devils won their five playoff games by a combined score of 202-60.

Linebacker Brett Young said, “It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish. (After beginning the season with a four-point loss to Woodruff) I told the guys, ‘We’re going to get better and better. It’s nothing to hang our [heads] about.
“This is the type stuff we’ve been talking about for four years. To see it finally becoming a reality is a feeling you just can’t explain. It means so much to the team. It means so much to me. It means so much to the community.”

On a cool December afternoon at Oliver C. Dawson Stadium on the campus of South Carolina State University, Clinton (12-2) thoroughly dominated the Warhorses, outpacing them in first downs (19-9), rushing yards (311-35) and total yards (349-155). The Red Devils committed no turnovers. Barnwell (13-2) was even penalized more (73-59). The last happens about as often as the Charlotte Hornets win.

The Warhorses only escaped their pen once, on Jordan Peeples’ 90-yard kickoff return in the first quarter, drawing Barnwell briefly within two points at 8-6.
For all the offensive artistry, the centerpiece of this victory was on the defensive side, where the Red Devils’ pursuit and gang-tackling kept a Barnwell offense, and specifically quarterback Cameron Austin, frustrated.

Austin completed 15/35 passes for 105 yards and was intercepted by Austin Boyd, proving that Austins think alike. He was the Warhorses’ leading rusher, too, gaining 50 yards but losing 13 of them.
“We knew if we didn’t practice hard and play hard, [Barnwell] had a bunch of guys who could cut us,” Young said. “We had the mentality that it wasn’t over till the clock hit zero.”

The defenders played their finest game on the biggest stage.

As for the stage, the crowd was magnificent, particularly the 3,000 or so who somehow managed to get up in the morning and drive 100 miles for a 2 p.m. game on a weekday. Clinton travels well, but who knew the town had such rapid transit?

Meanwhile, Clinton quarterback Richardson was vintage Tushawan, putting the Red Devils on top with a 70-yard sojourn, following his blockers and manipulating the sideline, on the game’s second play. Rhett Gilliam kept the energy circulating with a two-point conversion run.
The Warhorses showed some electricity of their own on Peeples’ kickoff return.

Clinton just hitched up its britches and went back to work. The first quarter ended 15-6 after D.J. Clark roared into the end zone from 27 yards out.
The Red Devils added another score in each of the remaining quarters on Gilliam’s five-yard run in the second quarter, Devin Swindler’s lovely catch in the back of the end zone on Richardson’s 29-yard bomb in the third, and Gilliam’s second score, an eight-yarder with 6:49 remaining.
Lukas Kuykendall hit the three PATs he tried.

Richardson led the Red Devils in rushing with 95 net yards in seven carries. Javen Cook’s 84 yards in 20 carries gave him 1,814 for the season. Gilliam rushed for 58 yards in 11 tries.
Next week the Devils don’t have anyone left to play. Boys’ basketball will have all its pieces, and the games will be indoors with balls that bounce reliably.
“I’ll remember this forever,” said tackle Tre Aiken. “I’ll always remember my teammates. We worked the hardest of any team I’ve ever played with.”

“Every mile or so a sign proclaimed that Christ was coming soon, and I thought, well, man, He’d sure be disappointed if He did.” – Tom T. Hall, “Trip to Hyden”
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Most of the protagonists in my novels are combinations of memories and observations. Duh. I am fascinated by likeable rogues. I knew a lot of them in NASCAR. The result is my only two novels that are related to each other, Lightning in a Bottle and Life Gets Complicated, both published in 2017.
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