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By Steve Dooley
11.12.08
Oak Grove - In the
movie O Brother, Where Art Thou a trio
of convicts escape from a chain gang
and set out to retrieve a treasure supposedly
buried before their incarceration. Everett,
Pete and Delmar have only four days to find
the treasure before the valley in which it is
hidden is flooded to create a lake.
The three briefly travel
with a young musician who reveals that he
sold his soul to the devil in exchange for
being able to play the guitar. The quartet
call themselves the Soggy Bottom Boys and
they eventually get around to recording the
hit song "Man of Constant Sorrow".
Although it takes a rather
twisted sense of the imagination, there's a
peculiar parallel between the chain gang
members of O Brother, Where Art Thou
and the chain gang members of Oak Grove
football. Kip Crowe, Jay Sims, Reese Traylor
and Cecil Jones are the Oak Grove chain gang
- a group of volunteers who work the sideline
chains for all Oak Grove home games and many
away games. They are, without a doubt., the
most dedicated and capable chain gang in all
of Louisiana high school football.
The Oak Grove "Chain Gang"
claimed an identity back in the mid-90's when
Oak Grove was on a championship run ('89,
'91, '99, '01). Jay Sims was an original
member who, like many Tiger fans, took an
interest in Oak Grove football even though he
didn't have a son playing. Later, Jay's three
daughters gave him more reason to follow the
Tigers when they became members of the
various Tiger spirit groups. Like Sims, Kip
Crowe played football at Oak Grove and later
joined "The Chain Gang" while following his
seven kids from game to game. Cecil Jones and
Reese Traylor were recruited to the gang
after a couple of the original members moved
off or took up other interests.
The "Chain Gang's" mission
is rather simple and straightforward. Their
job is simply to follow the ball up and down
the sideline, marking the beginning and
ending point of every play, maintaining the
down marker, and assisting with measuring for
first downs as needed. But, just as the Soggy
Bottom Boys created a few interesting stories
while on their mission, the Oak Grove "Chain
Gang" has a few side stories of their own.
At all Oak Grove home
games, the chain crew is always assigned to
the visitor side of the field, as is the case
at other stadiums. As a result, the chain
crew is privy to many sideline conversations
and events that spectators may never be aware
of.
Traylor relates a story
about a Tallulah team that visited Oak Grove
several years back. Oak Grove had a big
defensive end named Booker T. Washington who
went on to play college football at Louisiana
Tech. Booker T. had grown up in the Tallulah
area and was known by Tallulah's quarterback
who was nicknamed "Pookie".
Prior to the game, Traylor
says he overheard the Tallulah quarterback
holler over to the Oak Grove sideline
taunting his childhood friend, Booker. Well,
Booker T. was the type of player that didn't
need much encouragement and early in the
contest, Booker T. collared "Pookie" in the
backfield and threw him down. "The first
thing that hit the ground was that
quarterback's facemask," recalled Traylor
emphasizing how brutal an encounter with
Booker T. could be.
After several more plays
with similar results from Oak Grove's
defensive end, one of the Tallulah players
came running to the sidelines and was met by
the head coach. When asked what the problem
was out there, the player responded, "Coach,
Pookie say he don't want to play no more."
Traylor relates another
story involving Rayville in which he was on
one end of the chain and Crowe was on the
other end. Sims was handling the down marker
when one of Rayville's many big LSU recruits
blocked Oak Grove player Cazell Hickman
halfway across the field and into the
sideline. "I was watching the action on the
field and I felt the chain tighten up,"
Traylor recalls. "I looked back and piled up
was the Rayville player on top of Hickman,
who was on top of Sims, who was on top of the
Rayville waterboy. The down marker was all
bent up. Sims got up and calmly walked back
to the sideline and commented, 'Boys, its a
good thing it was me and not one of you. A
lesser athlete would have been seriously
injured.'"
On another occasion, Sims
recalled a junior high team from the Start
area coming to play Oak Grove's junior high
team. After warm-ups, Sims heard one of the
players inquire to the coach, "Coach, I
thought we were coming to play Oak Grove's
junior high team". To which the coach
replied, "This is their junior high team. Why
do you ask?" The player responded, "Those
guys have hairy legs". The coach yelled back,
"Boy, you got hairy legs too!" And, the young
man shot back, "Yeah, but the hair on my legs
ain't nothing like theirs!"
Traylor remembers an
encounter between a Grambling coach and
player in which the player came running off
the field after a difficult defensive series
in which the player did not do well. The
coach met him before he got to the sideline
and proceeded to question him intently, "Son,
are you scared? Tell me if you scared. I know
you scared. Are you scared? Yeah, you scared.
I know you scared, I can see your uniform
skakin' !"
Crowe relates this story:
"Late in [a game with Crescent City]
I was standing down toward the end zone on
the south end. Some of the reserve Crescent
city players were standing there beside me
when one of their guys got injured. As we
were all waiting to see the severity of the
injury with all the medical personnel
standing over the injured player, I overheard
one of the reserve players make a comment to
his buddy standing next to him, 'Man! I sure
wouldn’t want to get hurt up here in the
middle of nowhere! No telling where the
closest hospital is!' I had to chuckle at
that and I nudged one of the boys and told
him not to worry, if we couldn’t get him
to a hospital we had a couple of good
veterinarians in the area that could take
care of him. Either they didn’t see the
humor in it or they took me seriously because
the look of concern never faded from there
face."
The "Chain Gang"
occasionally runs across a coach whose
intensity level exceeds that which is
conducive to good sportsmanship. On one
occasion, a long-standing Oak Grove rival was
visiting and the scoring was back and forth.
In a burst of emotion, one of the assistant
coaches yelled out on the field for his
defense to get in there and break the leg of
the Oak Grove quarterback.
Now, any member of the Oak
Grove "Chain Gang" would be a force to reckon
with if riled to the point of a physical
confrontation. But, in the spirit of
sportsmanship Sims insisted that he and his
crew members maintain a sense of
professionalism even though the assistant
coach obviously had "crossed the line".
For the rest of the game
though, anytime the referees called for the
chains to be moved, Sims would tilt the end
of his pole in such a way that the chain
would rattle along the shin bones of the
offending assistant coach. Unfortunately for
the assistant coach, he had made the mistake
of wearing short pants and no socks that
night.
There are numerous other
stories from the sidelines of Oak Grove
football that evoke a chuckle - some that
involve language that shouldn't be spoken and
can't be printed. Catch one of the "Chain
Gang" members sometime and they may share a
few more with you. But, unlike the chain gang
in O Brother, Where Art Thou, don't
expect any movies anytime soon about this
group. For one thing, the only treasure they
are looking for is another state
championship.
And don't expect to see
any hit songs either. With 25 straight years
of playoff appearances and 11 straight years
of quarterfinal appearances, you won't hardly
find a "man of constant sorrow" in Oak Grove.
Aside from that, I've heard most of these
chain gang members sing. I'm thinking, even
the devil wouldn't take that deal!
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Working
on the Chain Gang
