Published: September 29, 2009 10:26 pm      

Last meeting

Cubs, Owls play for final time

BLUEFIELD — This Friday night in Iaeger, the football teams of Big Creek and Iaeger end their long rivalry with one final clash, at Fanning Field. Soon, the focus will be on combining the football programs into one new entity, next year’s Riverview Raiders.

But not quite yet.

Iaeger head coach Mitch Estep said on Tuesday, “We have a good rivalry. Maybe next year, we’ll be teammates, but this week we’re competitors. ...

“This sort of finalizes it, and then we can move forward with the merger. We’re kind of glad, in that regard, to get it done and not have it stretch out the rest of the season, and then we can concentrate on moving forward.”

He continues to promote the future of education in western McDowell County. “They’re building a beautiful building there in Bradshaw,” he said.

In Iaeger, the final year of the school has already been a time of special recognitions, including a full weekend of homecoming activities in Iaeger on Sept. 17-19, which Estep said was “really extraordinary.” He said, “The community support has been good.”

The two schools have adopted slogans to go with their final season. Estep said, “Our theme this year has been ‘Forever a Cub.’ Theirs, I believe, is ‘Once an Owl, Always an Owl.’ ”

He said he and Big Creek head coach Mike Vallo are in constant contact, and have been for years before the new school construction began.

“He works with us down here,” Estep said. “We talk all the time. We talk about football all year. ... We’re just friends in general. We want what’s best for both schools.”

One subject lately has been the impending merger. “We want to concentrate on the kids coming together,” Estep said. “We want this consolidation to be successful.”

In the meantime, there’s football to be played. Iaeger is 4-1 and remains in 11th place in Class A in the official computer ratings released on Tuesday. The Big Creek Owls are 0-4 after a 16-6 loss to Ervinton (Va.).

Estep said, “We’re having a pretty good start to the season. It’s a good turnaround.” He said that was due to “a combination of things — hard work, not just this year, but for the last two or three years.

“We’ve got good athletes; they’ve performed well, and matured a lot. We’ve got a good coaching staff. We’ve avoided injuries. And you always get lucky, once or twice. So we’ve had a nice start. We’ve been very fortunate in a lot of ways.”

This week’s contest is not a normal game. The students on both sides know it is the series finale.

Estep said, “I’m sure, in the back of their minds, that’s an incentive, but we’re just trying to get everyone to focus on preparing for the game, playing hard and playing as a team.”

Attempts to contact Big Creek High School on Tuesday, seeking information for this story, were unsuccessful.

— Contact Tom Bone at

tbone@bdtonline.com