By MONTE DUTTON

Some play football because they love it. Some play because it runs in the family and is expected of them, some because girls seem to like it. Some like to hit and not be hit. Some just love to get after it.

It has been Buddy Bridges’ frequent observation that the Laurens County Touchdown Club does it for love. Nothing, he says, brings the county together like football, at least when the club is meeting.

That’s the way it looked when the TD Club held its annual banquet at The Ridge, where Clinton’s Javen Cook zoomed to the top player award and Laurens Academy’s Jolly Doolittle was top coach. There wasn’t much dissent. Cook cut through defenses when wasn’t already zooming and gone. One week he set the school in little more than a half.

Doolittle took the Crusaders to the SCISA eight-man finals for the second year in a row. Last year a state championship carried Clinton’s Corey Fountain. Laurens Academy lost again in the final. All three of its losses were to King. Doolittle is a fine, inspirational man.

But I digress. I was writing about love.

Not just at the Wednesday banquet but also at the every-other-week gatherings during season, it’s fraternal, friendly and fun. Men who haven’t worn a green shirt since a trip to the Masters, ablaze in Clinton High Red, wrap arms around the shoulders with a co-worker in a Raiders hoodie.

During the season, that’s a Thursday. Everybody’s good and riled up by Friday night and Saturday.

But the darndest things happen when folks who know one another get some Lee’s BBQ in ‘em and commence to mingling. Laurens City Council seems bent on secession, and our president just named himself Viceroy of Venezuela. It’s refreshing when folks get along. It’s still possible in U.S.A. Version 250.0.

For instance, I discovered new Presbyterian College football coach Matt Rahl and I have a Missouri tie in common. Jim Sterling is NASCAR driver Carl Edwards’ stepfather and a prominent Mizzou fan. Jim took me around the campus, where everyone knows him, and we got together with the Tigers’ football coach at the time, Gary Pinkel.

That’s another reason these banquets are important. I had no fix on Rahl, formed only by the sweet nothings of introductions and manicured statements.

He’s a heck of a guy. It’s good to know that.

Every sports fan in the state already knew that about Buddy Pough, the longtime coach of the South Carolina State Bulldogs. He won a victory over Deion Sanders and Jackson State in the 2021 Celebration Bowl. It could well be that the majority of Pough’s Laurens County time has been spent at the TD Club, but his is a message that football-playing young’uns ought to hear on a yearly basis.

Plus, Pough has a fascinating link to Laurens County. PC’s Cally Gault coached Dick Sheridan at North Augusta High. Sheridan coached Pough at Orangeburg-Wilkinson. Pough is now retired though he still serves as SCSU’s athletics director. They’re all hall of famers.

Where did all those years go? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

It was most assuredly still football season on Jan. 7. While the TD Club was celebrating, the Presbyterian College basketball teams were commiserating.

Del Jones and Dennis Parker Jr. combined for 49 points, and Radford blitzed the Blue Hose, 80-61, after the teams were tied, 36-36, at halftime. PC (8-9, 1-1 Big South) shot .370 and didn’t hit a three-pointer in the latter half.

Carl Parrish scored 19 points, and Jonah Pierce added 17 points and 11 rebounds, but the twosome totaled only 11 in the final 20 minutes at the Virginia school’s Dedmon Center.

“It was a really competitive game, and I thought the guys played well in the first half against a very competitive team,” said PC head coach Quinton Ferrell.

“The second half was a matter of their guys hitting some really difficult threes. … We didn’t compete as well as we should have in the paint, and that actually helped their transition game. That was the difference in the game. We got the shots we wanted,” he added.

Radford (9-8, 2-0) outscored the Blue Hose 24-0 on second-half triples, shooting .500 from beyond the arc.

Last season the Highlanders eliminated PC from the Big South tournament with an overtime victory, 74-65, in Johnson City, Tenn. The Blue Hose actually won their previous trip to Radford, 80-73, last Feb. 22.

It’s on to Farmville in the Commonwealth swing. PC tips off at 3 p.m. on Saturday at Longwood (9-9, 1-2), coming off a 72-61 road loss at UNC Asheville.

Take a look at the stats here.

For the women, it was worse.

Led by Macy Spencer’s 21 points, High Point (14-2, 3-0) punished the Blue Hose, 76-43, at Templeton Center.

Ja’Cia Cunningham led Presbyterian (2-14, 0-3). An oddity was that PC shot .300 overall (15-50) and long-range (3/10).

Twenty turnovers plagued PC, which held its own on boards, lost for the 11^th straight time. The Blue Hose are off until next Wednesday, when they visit USC Upstate at 7 p.m.

Take a look at the stats here.

Many thanks to the advertisers who keep wellpilgrim.com going. If you’d like to join that number, contact me. Supplies are limited.

The site is also 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).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address, for now, is: Monte Dutton, 11185 Hwy. 56 N., Clinton, S.C.  29325 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon.