Robert E. Lee and Spotswood

Category: Sports

In Staunton, less than a mile away from my alma mater, VSDB, lies a high school named Robert E. Lee. Its students are not the ones I want to befriend -- extremely condescending and assholes at its best. But they have the best boys basketball coach in the state in Paul Hatcher. Hell, he is still coaching in his own gymnasium that was named after him!

Paul is very classy person. Last year, they needed two games to fill in their schedule -- many schools refused to play Lee because they were too powerful, so Paul asked VSDB to fill in. VSDB had nothing to lose but to gain the experience of playing the state's most powerful boys' basketball team. Suffice to say, both games were lopsided in favor of Lee, but when one VSDB player had a thunderous dunk at Lee High -- the gymnasium, my friend told me, nearly exploded with loud, raucous ovation because they loved seeing a deaf guy dunking on a Lee player.

When I read the article of lopsided games, Paul has nothing but praises for VSDB's courage -- that is pretty humbling of him to do that.

Last weekend, Robert E. Lee completed the season at 31-0 including winning the 2nd consecutive state AA championship. I believe it is Paul's fifth or sixth or was it ninth? I cannot remember.

But what amused me the most is ... Spotswood High School of nearby Harrisonburg also won the state AA Championship in Girls Basketball.

I believe it is the first time that two teams from the same district won the state championship in both genders. I'm not sure.

I was surfing the local newspaper -- and I was amused that they even had a blog to monitor the championship game last Saturday night!

Congratulations, Lee and Spotswood.

But Virginia is for haters.

R-