PREP FOOTBALL: Greenwave Backed by a League of Fans

CLINTWOOD, Va. – For this one week, everything in this small town, including the Christmas season, is taking a back seat to football.

Just check out the shops along Main Street. The green-and-gold messages scribbled in shoe polish across storefront windows convey one universal message: Greenwave pride.

“Greenwave football is the town of Clintwood and has been since the ‘70s,” the city’s mayor, Donald Baker, said. “This is the first opportunity we’ve had to win a state championship in 30 years. That ought to tell you something.”

If it doesn’t, the town’s businesses do.

As the Clintwood football team prepares for its second straight trip to the Virginia High School League Group A, Division 1 Championship game against Franklin on Saturday in
Salem, Va., the already football-crazed community’s excitement has reached a fevered pitch.

Modern Hardware and Furniture Co. stands in the middle of Clintwood downtown. Inside the store’s display area stand creamy leather couches and the thinnest plasma TVs.

The store’s window, however, hardly mentions these wares.

Instead, green letters inlayed in golden sparks announce, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger … WAVE.”

“We’ve had a 30-year streak where we’ve been mediocre,” laments Lana Stanley, a Modern employee and lifetime Clintwood resident. “All the painted windows, all the signage … everyone was supportive of the teams [in the past], but everyone loves a winner.”

Haielys Brandz, a small clothing outlet, has a storefront graffitied with notices encouraging the team to, “Go get ‘em boys!”

Inside, Mary Lou Duty can’t help but rave about the amount of Greenwave-inspired merchandise that has flown off the store’s shelves in recent weeks.

“A lot of Greenwave hats, hoodies, jackets,” she said. “If they’re playing on Saturday, then on Monday morning everyone comes in here smiling. You see the enthusiasm on their faces, for sure.”

Perhaps the most telling characteristic of the Clintwood state title rage is its ability to eclipse Christmas. Or at least the Dickenson County Christmas Parade.

“We had out Christmas parade scheduled for Friday evening,” Rita Surratt, the Dickenson County tourism director and executive director of the Clintwood Chamber of Commerce, said. “There will be a lot of people missing the parade – most of the teenagers, the high schoolers and probably a whole lot of the parents.”

Even the Dickenson County Emergency 911 office is not immune from the town’s football infection.

A hood of energetic cheerleaders invaded the place, leaving in their wake green declarations of “State in 08!” and “Ride the Wave!”

But Steven Powers, an ex-Clintwood player and current county dispatch supervisor who works at the office, won’t be able to travel to Salem, Va., to root on his alma mater. He’s putting a new rig into service that morning.

“But we had a meeting on Monday and were asked, win or lose, if we’d bring them back home,” he said. “That’s what we’ll be doing on Saturday night.”

Just like last season, when the Greenwave limped home from Salem as the state’s runner-up, the team’s bus will be escorted by flashing fire trucks when it trundles home Saturday night.

If it plays out like last year, Route 83 will be lined with fans tossing confetti and encouragement to the town’s conquering sons.

The team convoy will have to make a loop around the high school just to avoid the mass of Greenwave admirers clogging the town’s thoroughfares.

It will be pigskin pandemonium.

It will be Clintwood.

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