Up & Coming Weekly

March 21, 2017

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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28 UCW MARCH 22-28, 2017 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM After a variety of changes in format and location, the annual Cumberland County Football Jamboree will return to its roots this fall. Vernon Aldridge, student activities director for the county schools, announced recently that the jamboree is headed back to high school fields, scheduled for a two-day run on Aug. 9-10 at Cape Fear High School and South View High School. The field will include 24 schools, a number of them from outside the Cape Fear region. Recent jamborees have been held at Fayetteville State with a field half the size of this year's Aldridge has set an ambitious goal for the event, hoping to grow it into a major showcase for football in Cumberland County that will also help bring in money for the schools. "I was part of the original group that put on the first jamboree,'' Aldridge said. "The last few years we were matching up county teams against one another. One of the things I got from the coaches was they wanted to scrimmage people they didn't get an opportunity to scrimmage.'' Aldridge cast a wide net, sending an e-mail to every high school athletic director in the state. Response was overwhelming and he wound up having to turn schools away. He opted to go with 24 teams and the two-day format. The next step will be getting community support. "We're looking for the business community to jump on board and help sponsor it,'' Aldridge said. "We'd like to get to the point where we offer a $500 scholarship to each of the 24 schools. We'll need the support of the business community to do that.'' Aldridge is working with a committee he created that includes football coaches, athletic directors and retired Pine Forest High School principal Cindy McCormic. He's made no promises, but he's working toward the goal of seeing the scholarship dream become a reality at this year's jamboree. Coaches Jake Thomas of Cape Fear and Bill Sochovka of Pine Forest are both pleased with the direction Aldridge is trying to take the jamboree. "Having more out of county teams to come in I think will bring in more people,'' Thomas said. "It will also help our teams to have more pride now that it's Cumberland County vs. out of county teams.'' While the purpose of scrimmages for coaches is to help put a team together, Sochovka said they've also got to appreciate the need for the public to get a look at the teams. "It's important to have that showcase,'' Sochovka said. "We all need to understand that's the main goal. There's more to football than X's and O's. Vernon has a good plan in place and we have to embrace it.'' Here is the schedule for this year's jamboree. There will be two scrimmages in progress during each session, with a pair of teams competing on either half of the field: Aug. 9, at Cape Fear 6:30 p.m. – East Columbus vs. Farmville Central; Pfafftown Reagan vs. Overhills 7:30 p.m. – Triton vs. E.E. Smith; Union Pines vs. Douglas Byrd 8:30 p.m. – Richmond Senior vs. Cape Fear, West Johnston vs. Terry Sanford Aug. 10, at South View 6:30 p.m. – Hoke County vs. Gray's Creek, East Montgomery vs. Westover 7:30 p.m. – Northern Nash vs. Pine Forest, Eastern Wayne vs. Jack Britt 8:30 p.m. – Lee County vs. South View, Southeast Raleigh vs. Seventy-First. Football Jamboree Returns to Its Roots by EARL VAUGHAN JR. There's a feeling of nervous anticipation for Cape Fear High School athletic director Matt McLean, like the coach who's a little surprised to find his team holding a narrow lead headed into the fourth quarter of a game. The reason for McLean's excitement is the Wells Fargo Cup points standings for the Mid-South 4-A Conference entering the spring sports season. The cup is awarded to the conference school with the best overall athletic program, based on points awarded for order of finish in all official conference sports. Cape Fear, which has closely pursued Jack Britt for the award the last two years, is ahead of the Buccaneers 66-61.5 entering the final months of the school year. Spring is traditionally a strong season for Cape Fear, with the softball and baseball teams leading the charge. But McLean is taking nothing for granted. "We've made a point since I've been here to push kids to participate in multiple sports,'' McLean said. "A lot of our football players were involved in wrestling and basketball. That helped our winter sports.'' Cape Fear won an East Regional title in wrestling and the boys' basketball team won the Holiday Classic basketball tournament for the first time in school history. But it was in the fall Cape Fear showed its biggest jump, led by the football team's run to the state 4-A championship game. "We scored 41 points this fall,'' McLean said. "Volleyball, soccer, football and cross country all earned more points than in the past. Those were big jumps for us.'' McLean's goal for the end of the season is for Cape Fear to score at least 100 points in the Wells Fargo chase. That would be seven points up from the school's previous high. "If we get to 100, we could live with that, whatever place it puts us in,'' he said. Some of the school's better athletes think the drive to succeed in all sports has helped increase both participation and enthusiasm. Chris Matthews, one of the stars of the football team, wrestled in the winter and now is competing for the tennis team. "You see somebody is successful and you've got more of an urge to join that organization,'' Matthews said. "The future possibility of success has led to more people joining the team.'' Madeline Shook is a champion swimmer for the Colts who also ran cross country and is on the girls' soccer team this spring. "I think coaching has improved,'' she said. "There have been some new coaches come in and carry things along. A lot of the coaches stress playing different sports because it helps in different areas.'' "Even at the 4-A level, you need your best athletes participating in more than one sport,'' McLean said. The focus for all the teams is to finish the spring strong. Shook said the keys to doing that are simple. "Keep a good attitude and be motivated,'' she said. Cape Fear High School Seeking a Strong Finish to the Year by EARL VAUGHAN JR. EARL VAUGHAN JR., Sports Editor. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly. com. 910-987-5311 Madeline Shook Bill Sochovka Chris Matthews Jake Thomas HIGH SCHOOL HIGHLIGHTS

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