Friday’s game marked Chapel Hill’s ninth straight win in the series, but it also was the first time Bill Hodgin has missed the CHHS-East football game since the Chapel Hill News first sponsored the eponymous cup.

Hodgin is one of the handful of educators to work at both of the rival high schools. He was the football head coach at Chapel Hill High School, 1984-95, and moved over to East Chapel Hill to be its first athletics director, 1996-1998, helping the fledgling program get started.

He left Chapel in 1999, moving with his wife back to Roxboro, where he’d been the football coach at Person Senior High, 1980-1984.

The Chapel Hill News created the cup to help give the CHHS-East rivalry the status it deserved and thought Hodgin was a perfect symbol of what the game should be – a meeting of two disparate and yet very similar schools, both highly successful in athletics and yet devoted to academic achievement and sportsmanship.

Hodgin always was willing to return to town to hand the cup personally to the victors and give them some words of encouragement. This year, he just couldn’t do it because the annual meeting’s date was rescheduled.

This time it just happened to fall on the birthday of Hodgin’s wife – which also happens to be the couple’s 49th wedding anniversary. “I’m not saying my wife told me I couldn’t go, but there are some things you should do and some things you just shouldn’t,” Hodgin said.

He promises he’ll be back next year, Lord willing.

One and done

Chapel Hill brought out a secret weapon last week: Alex Colson.

A senior, 240-pound offensive guard, Colson had wanted to be a fullback when he first went out for football but has learned to be a great blocker on the line. In Friday’s fourth quarter, he led the way around the left side and sprung a block to get Allen loose for a 56-yard touchdown run.

And when the Tigers needed three yards for a final first down to eat up the last 90 seconds, they called on Colson to carry the ball.

He bulled ahead, Refrigerator-style, and got four yards on is only rushing attempt. “This game he got his chance to get back in the backfield,” coach Issac Marsh said. “But he’s not really to carry the ball. He’s still looking to block.”

Too late

East Chapel Hill missed wideout Jackson Boyer in Friday’s game. The state’s top returning receiver this year, Boyer had been suspended by league rules because of an altercation with an East Wake player in the first game of the season.

Some Wildcat supporters disputed the decision, claiming Boyer had only shoved away the overly aggressive East Wake player. The East Wake coach even supplied a game tape late in the week corroborating that version of the incident: No punches were thrown. But it was too late to have Boyer’s suspension overturned.

While may be gratifying to have one’s viewpoint verified, it may not soothe Boyer’s feelings much now that the game is over.