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Players of the Past: Saluda vs Thurmond - A House Divided By Tim Crane web posted September 1, 2010 SPORTS – The Saluda-Thurmond series has been a special rivalry for so many years due to the schools close proximity and the relationships of both communities. Most players, on each team, have family and/or friends on the other side of the field. This game is about pride; family, school and community pride when these two teams meet up on the gridiron. The following article features a father and son combination in which the father played for Saluda and the son for Strom Thurmond. They are truly a house divided during game week of Saluda vs Strom Thurmond.  Name: Nick
Prater Head Coach (s): Dusty Tripplet and Lee Sawyer Years at ST: 2000-2004 Football Accomplishments: Won region title in 2004 (senior season), first region title since 1996. Thurmond won state title following season. Position(s) Played: Tight end and Linebacker Present Occupation/Residence: Comcast Contractor/ Edgefield Marriage/Children: None  Name: Rusty
Prater Head Coach (s): Scrap Brown, Wes Murphy, Bettis Herlong (Sonny Yonce was assistant) Years at Saluda: 1968-1972 Position(s) Played: Wide Receiver Football Accomplishments: Walked on at Carson Newman and earned a scholarship offer at linebacker. Present Occupation/Residence: Retired, Edgefield (Colliers Community) Marriage/Children: Three children; Nick, Nicole, Victoria. Married to Debra (STHS Graduate). Nick’s Best Memories: My senior season, Lee Sawyer took over as head coach and there was a different vibe around the team. We were all very excited and ready to turn the program back into the right direction. Thurmond’s program had been down for a few years, which was unusual, but when Coach Sawyer took over, we were the Thurmond of old. We finished the regular season 9-1 and won the first region title in eight years. At a Jamboree my senior year I was playing linebacker, I mistakenly blitzed, because a teammate made the wrong call, but I still made the tackle in the backfield. I was jacked up and thought Coach Sawyer was coming to congratulate me. But he grabbed me by the facemask and said you better be glad you made that tackle! Do you know what would have happened to you if you missed it? I didn’t want to think about what would have happened to me if I’d missed that tackle!! Sawyer was strict when he had to be but he was fun at other times. I made a big hit and knocked a helmet off an Emerald player, Sawyer was in the pressbox but after game he was the first on the field to come congratulate me. He would get pumped up about big hits! He snatched me up at weightlifting; all of the football players would be lifting and I was across the room talking to girls, Sawyer embarrassed me and drug me over to the correct side of the weightroom!! I started at Linebacker, but was moved to tightend my senior season because I had great hands. My senior year, 2004, we played Carolina Forest, in the fog, during the second round of the playoffs. That is one game we all wished we could have had back after losing 35-28. We practiced for them to pooch kick it the entire week and sure enough on their first kickoff they popped it straight up, into the fog, right at me. I was able to bring it in even after losing it in the fog. That was about as kind as the fog was to us that night. They began throwing the ball up into the fog and it would fall into their receiver’s arms down the field. Sawyer gave me and Coach Corley a hard time for having long hair. One day he got tangled up in Coach Corley’s beads and ripped them down, then turned around and said “damn hippies” all mad and serious…we thought it was so funny! Up until my junior year, Saluda was the main rivalry for our team, but it meant even more to me since my Dad was a Saluda Tiger. Dad has always road us hard about being Strom Thurmond Rebels. After we loss to Saluda in 2003, by one point, he ragged me to relentlessly (Tiger Meat! Tiger Meat!). The feeling from beating Saluda in 2002 was great though and I gave him a hard time because we blew them out. Our entire team was disappointed about the series with Saluda being cancelled after the 2003 season. That was always the game we got up for more than any other game. I think it’s great that they’ve started playing again and I also enjoyed talking junk to my Dad from the 64-0 beating we put on them in 2008. Hobbies/interest: enjoying college football, concerts, hanging out with friends One place you would like to visit that you haven’t yet: Key West Rusty’s Best Memories: Growing up in our time, Saluda, Johnston and Edgefield were football towns. If you lost on Friday night you didn’t want to see anyone on Saturday morning, especially the men around town. This game was a big rivalry and I wish it would get back that way. Strom Thurmond would play Dixie when we entered the stadium, but it got us all jacked up too because we were all southern boys. Even when we went to Teen Town, we’d get run off. The Columbians would come to play and everyone would want to go see them, but if you were from Saluda, you didn’t go to Johnston and if you were from Johnston you didn’t go to Saluda. We would hang out at Winnie Winn’s and when Thurmond boys would come up, we’d tell them to turn around and don’t even think about getting out of the car. There wasn’t any guns or killings, if was just a fun rivalry. My senior year we played Strom Thurmond at Newberry College in a jamboree. It was a big deal even for a jamboree because we were playing Thurmond. We would get jacked up more for playing Thurmond than anyone else. I remember our coaches coming into the locker room acting like Coach Morris (Thurmond HC) had sent letters to our team, talking smack about us. This would get our entire team all fired up! That week was always special. The rivalry was that good. Everyone got jacked up for it. My junior and senior years we lost to Thurmond and it was painful and I still remember it. We used to have a powerhouse conference when we played in 3A; Irmo, Allendale Fairfax, Lexington, Newberry, Olympia, Thurmond, and LBC. When you went to Olympia you sometimes had to fight your way out. Those players and fans came from Mill Hill and they were all tough. What they thought about fighting wasn’t anything. It was like that at LBC too. After we beat LBC one year, a few of us began taunting their fans. A crowd of them came out of the stands after us and I remember running through the parking lot yelling start up the bus! start up the bus! I made it in time though! We went to Greenwood and had about 20 players. Greenwood came onto the field looking like the Green Bay Packers and had players lined up from endzone to endzone. It nearly terrified us, but Coach Ream said they can only play 11. That put it in perspective and we settled down. My junior year, our game with Thurmond was rained out Friday so we played on Saturday night at Strom Thurmond. Fisher Strom played linebacker for the Rebels. Our quarterback called a slanting pass and when I got to the line Fisher was pointing at me and saying come on over on the slant! That was the last thing I wanted to do because he would hit you…and he hit me when I slanted his way, hard! I also played against Gene Rushton Jr and Mike Ellis who are now my good friends. That same night three of our punts were blocked, by our own player; Jake Anderson. He was a great lineman but on three occasions he backed into the punter and the ball hit him in the backside, giving Thurmond great field position! Needless to say Thurmond won. On a double pass play, I threw a pass to George Todd, he got to the 20 but it was called back because of a tackle ineligible (Eddie Shealy forgot to get back to the line). Unfortunately that was the closest we made it to the goalline that night. Red Brooks was on our team and he was an awesome runningback. He could just flat run over people or right by them. Jonathan and Red Brooks were brothers that played at Saluda and they had a package deal to go to South Carolina on football scholarships. But tragically, Red drowned the summer he was supposed to go to South Carolina. Jonathan decided to go to Clemson and then he went onto play for the Kansas City Chiefs. They were both great players and it was really sad that Red’s life was cut so short. I also played with Ricky Padgett, who became a great field goal kicker at Lenoir Rhyne College. He could kick a football, mainly because he had size 13 shoes even in high school! Luke Brown could have went anywhere to play college football, but he got his neck broke during his sophomore year. He still was a great player even after the injury. A year after we graduated we talked to a lot of the players and told them they needed to avenge our losses to Thurmond and they did, 65-0 (1973). Saluda needs to start winning some games to get the rivalry heated back up. I didn’t have much to say in 2008 after Thurmond won 64-0, but Nick enjoyed it! You can’t talk about Thurmond or Saluda without talking about Bettis Herlong. He was as tough of a coach there ever was. You were physically in shape when you played for him and didn’t have a choice in the matter! He was hard nose and meant everything he said and did. He’d grab you by the facemask, chop you in the nose or pop you in the gut! Coach Bettis wouldn’t let you play if your hair wasn’t cut short enough. Sometimes after we won he’d still be mad!! My senior year we won our last game and on the way home he told us if we didn’t shut up, he would stop the bus and make us walk home and he wasn’t joking. In 1972 he coached the Shrine Bowl and had the choice of taking two players, but he was so mad at us, he took the cheerleaders instead. Coach Herlong couldn’t coach in today’s time. He would be too hardnosed for the kids and parents of today’s generation. Not a lot of players made it under him because he was so tough. We had to get a skeleton crew together after so many players quit. One day at practice, our center, Ricky, threw up on the ball, hiked it to Luke Brown and Luke threw it to me with puke spiraling off it and I refused to catch it! Coach Herlong threw his hat down and kicked the entire team off the field and it wasn’t in polite terms!!! Playing Batesburg it was third and long, Coach Bettis called a run play (which was about all he ever called) so we changed the play to a pass in the huddle. Half of the players were saying no way, ya’ll must be crazy, don’t change Coach’s play! But, our quarterback Luke said everyone block, I’m going to rollout, Prater run as far as you can, if you drop it keep running because I’m right behind you! I caught it and scored! We went into halftime and Coach didn’t care that we scored, he only cared we changed his play. That was a long halftime! My sister started dating our head coach, Wes Murphy, my junior year and my life became miserable. He told me there would be no favoritism shown and he wasn’t joking! They took us to St. Andrews College in Fayetteville NC for camp (Myrtle Beach and Summerville were there too). We practice three times a day and it was hot and extremely humid. Camp was the best thing for our team after integration; it helped us all get away from the tension and to form a team bond. We realized that race didn’t matter one night when some Summerville players tried to start a fight with one of our players and the entire team came out to stand up for him. It was hard to watch my son play for Thurmond against Saluda but I was very glad he got to play for Lee Sawyer. Sawyer is a very good football coach. I take great pride in stating it took a Saluda boy to get Thurmond a state title and get them back on the right track! Football and good coaches will train you for life. Get up when you lose and keep moving. I wish everyone could play. Hobbies/interest: Enjoy attending high school games, traveling, riding the motorcycling One place you would like to visit that you haven’t yet: The Bahamas or anywhere in the Caribbean. © Copyright 2010 EdgefieldDaily.com All original
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