By MONTE DUTTON

Mother’s Finest is a funk rock band whose fame spread rapidly in the 1970s. I saw the Atlanta-based band play the Clinton Family YMCA. A couple years later, it played with Styx and Foghat at Greenville Memorial Auditorium.

Dis go dis way / Dis go dat way / Way go zoom, zoom / Russian go to the moon.

What does all this have to do with this week’s Laurens County Touchdown Club Player of the Week?

Clinton High School running back Javen Cook is nicknamed Zoom. He zoomed a lot in Friday night’s 40-34, overtime victory over Chapman.

As an aside, Mother’s Finest, still active, has a guitarist named John “Red Devil” Hayes.

Cook, a senior, rushed 20 times for 215 yards and three touchdowns on runs of 50, eight and 17 yards. As a team, the Red Devils rushed for 379 yards. Cook also caught a 13-yard pass.

Head Coach Corey Fountain stated, “Javen ran the ball with relentless drive and a will to always finish forward. He also did a great job of leading the team when the game came down to the wire.”

Daniel (2-1) visits Clinton (2-2) on Friday night. Laurens Academy (4-0) travels to Batesburg to play King Academy (4-0). Laurens High (0-4) has a week off.

The guest speaker at the TD Club is a familiar face. Shell Dula, a Laurens native and PC graduate, was for many years the executive director of the S.C. Athletic Coaches Association. As a high-school football coach, Dula won state championships at Ninety Six, Union and Greenwood high schools, winning 253 games in 32 seasons.

Tickets are available at the door for $15 at The Ridge, 301 Exchange Road, Laurens. The food-service line opens at 11:45 a.m., on Thursday.

The college-football season is three games old, and Presbyterian College has already exceeded expectations.

Not many expected the Blue Hose to upset Mercer and Furman in the first two games. Many did expect PC to defeat Erskine last Saturday, and the outlook is bright for this Saturday’s 1 p.m. game versus Bluefield (Va.).

A 2-2 record seemed a lead-pipe cinch. A 4-0 seemed a longer shot than a rocket to Mars.

Another preseason expectation in the wide, wide world of the Pioneer Football League is that Presbyterian is a contender. The Blue Hose won their last four games last year and begin PFL play this year on Sept. 27 against Morehead (Ky.) State.

Head coach Steve Englehart allowed himself only tepid satisfaction from the 42-14 conquest of the Flying Fleet. The Hose didn’t play that well. It’s hard to defeat Goliath and Hercules back to back, then encounter a brash weakling on the season’s yellow brick road.

While winning an Academy Award for Best Actor, Robert Duvall, as Mac Sledge, said, “See, I don’t trust happiness. I never have. I never will.”

The entry to the FCS playoffs still runs through the PFL schedule, and the PFL is a competitive union. In the final nine weeks of the season, teams from Virginia (Bluefield), Kentucky (Morehead State), Florida (Stetson), Indiana (Valparaiso) and New York (Marist) come to Clinton, and Presbyterian takes off for Indiana (Butler), Ohio (Dayton), North Carolina (Davidson) and Minnesota (Saint Thomas).

Englehart knows it’s a long, hard road.

“It’s not just this year,” he said. “It’s the culmination of four years of hard work that our kids have put in. You’ve got to go through a lot of different experiences and challenges. We talk all the time about effort, discipline, perseverance, and that leads to trust, respect and love.

“We missed more tackles [against Erskine] than we missed in the first two games combined. We had more errors in blocking assignments. There’s still a lot to focus on.”

Bluefield (1-1) hasn’t played a close game. The Rams defeated Thomas (Ga.), 32-10, and fell the University of the Cumberlands (Ky.), 66-12.

Among the familiar names in the latest S.C. Media prep football rankings:

In Class 4A, A.C. Flora is fourth and Daniel eighth.

Belton-Honea Path is first in 3A. Woodruff is second, and Newberry is fourth.

In 2A, Clinton is second.

In A, Ware Shoals is fifth.

For years, my site has been supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports). Every little bit helps.

Most of my books are available at Amazon.