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Buckeye Local's win Friday night at Edison was a historical one for a Panther football program that got its start in the fall of 1990.
Reaching milestones are significant not because they give us something to write and talk about, but because reaching a milestone if anything gives us the opportunity to look back on where it all started and what happened along the way.
Friday night in Richmond, Buckeye Local's Panther football team won for the 100th time in the school's history. Not a significant number on a state or national level, but a significant point in the history of Buckeye Local football.
Probably best-known for producing football great Billy West and the success of coaches like Ron Pobolish, Mike Groves and Karl Justice who took the Panthers to the playoffs, Panther football is best known for those first five years that produced undefeated teams and quickly put the then-young school on the map.
It is ironic that an Edison team that enabled the Panthers to pick up win No. 100 was pieced together from a one of the schools that enabled Buckeye to collect that first win back on August 24, 1990.
Only as a reminder do I mention that Buckeye Local is a consolidation of seven original schools in Dillonvale, Brilliant, Adena, Mt. Pleasant, Yorkville, Smithfield and Warren Consolidated in Tiltonsville.
Those a bit younger remember the original three schools that formed the Buckeye Local consolidation, those being Buckeye South, Buckeye West and Buckeye North. And those even younger possibly remember the fire at Buckeye West than led to the two-year merger of that school with Buckeye South, thus we had Buckeye SouthWest.
How can something so simple as seven little schools eventually be turned into on giant complicated conglomerate in a place called Connorville? Simple. Mathematics. As you subtract numbers from a larger number, you get a smaller number.
Thus you have Buckeye Local seventeen years later in Connorville.
What does this have to do with football and Buckeye Local's 100th win on Friday night in Richmond? It's part of reaching a milestone. You know, that part where you get to look back on where it all got started.
You see, Buckeye Local like so many other school consolidations are for a purpose and the purpose is always mathematics. The big numbers keep getting subtracted from to make smaller numbers and the other bigger numbers, the ones with dollar signs in front of them, keep getting bigger so we have to find ways to subtract from them creating other smaller numbers so we can keep the doors to schools open.
Confused yet? The thing is, we will always have mathematics at work, eliminating small schools so we can make schools bigger so eventually they are most cost-effective and we can offer the kids more. Geez, I was just talking like a politician.
But while we can't forget mathematics, what we have to remember is history. That is why we look back after we reach a milestone. History.
Back on August 24, 1990, Buckeye Local got its start on the gridiron. The Panthers opened their first season against a school that was on the same consolidation path, Edison South.
Based in Richmond, same town, same building as the current Edison Wildcats, Edison South was one of two Edison Local School District mergers that eventually combined. Edison North was located in Hammondsville at the Stanton High School building and South was a combination of Jefferson Union and Springfield.
I guess if you are starting a new school and you are opening your first season, you always wanted the ball first. Well, that wasn't the case. When the Panthers played their first game ever, the first Buckeye Local player to touch the ball was George Merriman, the kicker.
Merriman's kickoff wasn't returned for a score and surprisingly, the first time Buckeye Local got its hands on the ball in an offensive kind of way, the Panthers didn't get to keep it. Edison punted, Buckeye returned it and all of that was wiped out by the Panthers' first 15-yard penalty in Buckeye Local history.
Eventually, the Panthers got their shot on offense and they liked playing defense so much, they stayed on offense just one play.
A 90-yard touchdown pass from Terry Boyd to Jamie Tonkovich was the first offensive play the Panthers ever ran. Tonkovich was so fast, no one was going to catch him and Pobolish knew that. Merriman added on a PAT and the rest is history. Buckeye won that first game by 48-6 and they won the next nine before Steubenville beat the Panthers in Division II Region 5 semi-finals.
West went on to score three touchdowns in that game as did Tonkovich and Buckeye went on to win 48 games in its first five years advancing to the state finals in 1994. It was a great start for a school whose roots were deep with success from its predessors.
There have been great players and teams not only at Buckeye Local, but at those seven original schools and the original Buckeye consolidations.
So many of those old players have been forgotten, sometimes by design and sometimes by our busy lifestyles. It's not just in southern Jefferson County, but throughout the entire Ohio Valley.
Mathematics may be that main source of change in our lives, but History was and is our lives. Cherish the first win, the second and all that follow.
Those aren't just numbers, they are History.