By Mary Claire Morris and Griffin Kish
The excitement was palpable at Grady Stadium on Friday night as the Grady Grey Knights warmed up prior to their game with North Clayton. Although the pent up energy is typical for football games, the Sept. 6 game held special importance as the team was trying to win the game for Coach Ronnie Millen so he could earn his 100th victory as a head coach at Grady.
Grady senior running back Hakeem Todd rushed for a touchdown in the game’s first five minutes and the Grey Knights never looked back, cruising to an easy 35-6 victory and earning Millen his 100th win.
Millen has been head coach since 2001 but has been coaching at Grady for 28 years.
“I think the kids have been trying real hard to do it, [get the 100th win],” Millen said. “They’ve been talking about it, probably a little bit more than they should have. I just told them tonight, win the game for yourselves win the game for Grady. We can go out and take care of our business and everything will fall into place.”
After the initial kickoff return by Grady to the opposing 21 yard line and Todd’s immediate touchdown, the score was 7-0 early in the first half.
“I was excited and more pumped,” Todd said on scoring the touchdown. “My thoughts were, ‘Let’s finish this team off and get a blowout!’”
The second quarter began with the Grey Knights advancing the ball all the way to the opposing 1-yard line, where they scored again to make the score 14-0.
With 3:17 left in the first half, Grady intercepted a pass by the Eagles. Aided by big gains by receiver Aaron Cochran and running back Armond Davis, Grady then drove the ball to the end-zone for a touchdown for the Knights.. After Zac Carter’s third successful extra-point kick, Grady led 21-0, which was the halftime score.
In the second half, Grady kicked off to the Eagles, but the Eagles were grounded quickly and had to punt the ball back to the Knights. Grady capitalized on this early turnover,, but holding penalty negated a huge run by Davis.
The Knights responded to the penalty immediately as Davis ran 52 yards to the Eagle 28-yard line. Grady was unfortunately unable to score,and punted to the Eagles, who got the ball back at their own 1-yard line. The Knights soon got the ball back on their own 44-yard line then scored by a long run to the end zone by quarterback Isaiah Jenkins, making the score 28-0.
Clayton then drove the ball to Grady’s 38-yard line, but Jamal Glass snuffed out that drive by intercepting a pass. The Knight ensuing drive stalled, and the Eagles received the ball at their own 27-yard line. The Knight defense caged the Eagles forcing them to turn the ball over on downs. The Knight’s started with the ball at the opposing 28-yard line which was then fumbled and recovered by the Eagles. The Eagles drove the ball to Grady’s 47-yard line, where they fumbled the ball back to Grady. Taking advantage of this possession, the Knights quickly drove the ball to the end-zone and scored, making the score 35-0.
Clayton received the ball again at their own 30-yard line, and were able to advance the ball to the end zone for a cosmetic touchdown late in the fourth quarter. Grady received the ball again and ran the clock out. The game ended with a final score of 35-6, and a Gatorade bath and 100th win T-shirt for Millen.
“It’s a good milestone,” Millen said after the game. “It’s just good to be able to get this over with…so hopefully this 100th win will start a new streak for us.”
The win was the team’s the third attempt to secure Millen’s 100th win. Their failed efforts to win the landmark game included a 7-6 loss to Decatur the week before in the team’s season opener and a playoff loss 21-20 to Monroe Area at the end the previous season.
“It always feels good to win,” Millen said. “Especially since we lost our last two games we played, I mean 100 especially, but its just good to get a win.”
Todd believes that the win was expected from the very beginning.
“From the time we walked on the field to warm up [it was obvious that Grady would take the win],” Todd said. “We come into every game with confidence that we prepared to win every game.”
In all of Millen’s 100 wins and 28 years of coaching, he has instilled upon his players the values of teamwork and sportsmanship. Although practice is on the field, importance is put on not only put on the sport, but academics as well.
“He helps get a lot of the players into college either by football or supporting them in getting good grades,” Carter said. “He sets up tutoring and ACT classes and has all the players turn in progress reports. He coaches the players like he would coach his own sons.”
“I just want to thank all my coaches and all my players over the years and assistant coaches and thank all the Grady fans and booster club and the community for supporting our team and supporting me over the years,” Millen said. “Its been a pleasure here being a grady and working in this community for 28 years.”
Expectations remain high for the rest of the season. The team’s next game is the Friday, Sept. 13, against Riverdale.
“Riverdale next week is going to be a tough game for us,” Millen said. “They beat us last year here and we’re going to have to travel up there and they beat this team pretty bad, worse than we did. So its going to be a good game next week and we got some good challenges coming up but we’re going to get better from week to week.”
