Find the City of Wauchula on a map and you might say to yourself, “twenty miles from somewhere and five miles from nowhere”–and you would not be wrong. It is one of those places that you find yourself driving through the city without realizing what has just happened, but what has actually occurred is that you have missed an opportunity to immerse yourself in the quintessential Friday-night-lights setting–the kind of setting that provides a direct link to our living history as high school football players, fans and coaches.
Hardee High School is the only game in town in the county that lies an hour due east of Bradenton and south of Lakeland and the good folks living in Wauchula are a part of a living history–the kind of history that hundreds of towns across this peninsula from top to bottom experienced before they became too big for their britches with multiple schools within the city limits. As of 2010’s Census, Wauchula had JUST reached 5,000 residents–aka the size of Miami’s Dr. Krop High School–and even though it may be small in stature, the city–and the school–are gigantic in their love for their Wildcats.
The city is just as important to the fabric of our high school sporting culture as like places such as Crawfordville (Wakulla HS), Green Cove Springs (Clay HS), Pierson (Taylor High School), Zephyrhills, Dade City, Fort Meade and Frostproof. To many of us, the city represents everything we stood for in our hometowns–even those that grew up in rural places outside of the state. It’s the kind of place that puts perspective squarely in front of premise.
Recently at Ignite, Hardee brought four of its players up to the event to get some competition and see where they stand before heading back to Wauchula to get right for spring ball. Class of 2017’s Cavaris Snell (CB-5/9-170), Sherry Lee (ILB/OLB-5-8/180), and Class of 2018’s Kai Washington (QB-5/11-178) and Damar Harris (RB-5/8/140). A fifth player–QB Hayden Lindsey was absent although the young man has been a consistent camper for his first two seasons.”Hayden does a great job for us–he’s a great leader–tough, hard-nosed and psychical kid. There’s just been a lot of inconsistencies there, but he’s an unbelievable young man,” said ‘Cats Head Coach, Buddy Martin.
“As far as an athlete goes, Kai’s one of those guys that we’re very excited about. As a tenth grader, he was very explosive and about halfway through the season, something clicked for Cavaris. He played corner for us and he started playing a little bit at slot receiver as well at the end of the season and he’s running track now. He’s probably by far the fastest kid we’ve had in a while. He’s even a little heavier than the 162-pounds he weighed-in at Ignite–he’s already getting some looks for track and he’ll continue to play corner and be a good receiver for us as well.”
Martin was also quick to sing the praises for Lee, who was a standout for Hardee’s Defense and embodies that blue-collar work ethic that tends to characterize many of the people who grow up in rural towns.
“Sherry Lee was our defensive MVP this season, I mean he plays inside linebacker for us–and he’s obviously undersized for that position, but he also plays outside linebacker and we’ve been talking about trying him at strong safety–which is a position that plays a lot in the box in our defense. He’s just all over the place–very good instincts–he led our team in interceptions from the inside linebacker position this year. He’s a quiet–easy going kid–that just leads by example–doesn’t say a whole lot–just shows up everyday and gets the work done.”
Martin knows that living in such a small community that’s as isolated as Wauchula–that the talent pool is inherently small and you’ve got to work with the kids you’ve got. Hardee plays in Class 5A, but even in that class–you can play against schools in Class 1A that may look like they’re in 8A when they get off the bus. Every town has its own unique pool of talent and riding the ups and downs can be like a roller coaster at times.
“We’re the only game in town, so we’ve got to get the best eleven players out there somehow. It’s funny man, we lineup and play Fort Meade and they look unbelievable compared to us–and even playing Frostproof looks unbelievable. We just don’t have those kinds of kids, but we had them a few years ago. I probably coached the best high school team I may ever coach the year we went down and lost American Heritage-Plantation in the regional finals. That year we had linebackers that look linebackers–we had defensive lineman that looked like defensive lineman. We had a tailback that was 240-pounds and could move. But that’s what makes small-town football–kids that will lineup and run through a brick wall for you–the kids don’t know they don’t look the part or do they care–they just want to play football.”
Why Wauchula? Because when you have a group of people that understand what life in a small-town is like–and that often times the ONLY representation of your town is your school and their athletic programs–sacrifices have to be made. Everybody knows everyone. Career paths mesh because of the ties (former and current) to athletics. Former coaches who are businessman now understand what it’s like to try and raise and family AND be accountable to the standards that are set and see to it that the coaches’ jobs are easy as they can possible be outside of the field just as much as on it.
“When I first came down to Hardee, I was hired as an assistant to Tim Price, I had known Tim for a long time and I was just a young guy that had just got his Masters Degree–I had GA’d at Shorter up in Rome, Georgia for two years and my wife was like it’s time to start making some money–she was getting tired of eating in the cafeteria–so the opportunity came and I’m from Bartow, so it was an opportunity for us to get close to home. I didn’t know if I would be down here for a long time, but while I was coaching as an assistant–one of the things that hit me right away was that there are some really good people here. It’s a country place–slow pace–and when it comes to football they want to win every game they play and I wouldn’t want to be somewhere they wouldn’t be that way. We found a church that we became involved in and we had a kid–a little girl–and it just became a great place to raise our kids.”
Martin knows that he is an important man–and with that comes stress. The same kind of stress that would follow at a school like Plant or Armwood. The kind of people you surround yourself that appreciate the struggles as much as the successes can make all the difference in the world–win or lose.
“It’s one of those places–and I say this with a lot of humility–that I’m the head football coach here and there’s only one of those guys here. People go out of their way–just the support is unreal. My first year we weren’t very good, and my third year we weren’t very good–and I’m a very passionate person. There would be people that would come up to me at church and say ‘coach we appreciate you’re having a hard time right now–we like it that you’re having a hard time sleeping at night because you’re losing–we like that about you.’–so it’s just a neat place.”
The kids have their own special way of endearing themselves to the fans and relatives that show up to watch them play on Fridays.
“We have a group of 20 kids that actually come and lift before school at 6:45am every morning–and I’ll talk to people around here about it and they’re in disbelief that they show up before school. The kids show up and get their work in and then hit the locker room for a shower and go to class. All those kids we’ve mentioned from the camp including Hayden are a part of that group, too–that doesn’t happen everywhere.”
Something else that Hardee has the no other community–aside from those in Arcadia in the neighboring county of DeSoto–is the state of Florida’s oldest continual rivalry between Hardee and the DeSoto County Bulldogs. Something that further solidifies the community and gives it an identity. It’s also a week that is yet-again one without sleep for Martin.
“It’s gut-wrenching for me. It’s one of those that people will start texting me about on the Friday night or Saturday morning immediately following our week nine game because we play DeSoto in week ten every year. That Saturday I’ll start getting texts–people that are on our school board–people from our church–our administration–my dad’s one that will text me and goes overboard with it. But I’ll start getting texts, calls and voicemails over it. I’ll tell you what else is cool, is that’s the week that former players will show up to the school and walk into the locker room. Everybody gets ready for it.”
The rivalry between the two communities brings out the best–and the worst at times, but it’s the oldest rivalry for good reason–because it’s more than just rivalry game–it’s an identity game. It’s also en experience that encompasses people in their natural state–people that work all day doing things that are exhausting and taxing on the body, yet people that are thinking about their Wildcats and how they’re going to beat those Bulldogs. In other words, Hardee High is basically the foundation for peoples’ way of lives–even if their lives involve many other things.
“When I first got here, I just figured that it was just another rivalry game–everybody’s got rivals. I figured okay it’s a big game–but you don’t understand. It’s bigger than that. There’s people that will film our pep rally and DeSoto has a pep rally and now with social media they’ll put the two out there and there will be people taking trash about the pep rally or talking trash about who’s going to pull the bigger prank. I’ve rolled up to school and there’s been dog biscuits laid out across our parking lot–or the one time they sprinkled kitty litter all over the school, but we’ve done the same thing back to them so it’s a two-way street. We have a bonfire every year that’s on Thursday and the entire purpose is to keep the kids from down to DeSoto and doing something stupid and getting in trouble. My offensive coordinator is actually a cowboy–that’s his job–and he’ll roll up to practice with his spurs on and the horse trailer in-tow and we go and have it at his house.”