January 24, 2002 — Clinton Howard stood up and screamed: “Ohhhhh! Ohhhhh! Ohhhhh!”
He pointed his finger outward repeatedly at nothing in particular. In several settings, such behavior would merit a trip to the mental ward. But not at a boys high school basketball game between East Hall and Gainesville.
No, at such a slugfest you’re considered crazy if you don’t act a little crazy.
“I holler a lot, but I know when to stop hollerin’,” admitted the 58-year-old Howard, a 1961 East Hall graduate, who can count on one hand the number of East Hall-Gainesville games he has missed since the rivalry — one of Georgia’s most heated — got its start back in 1958.
Last Saturday night in East Hall’s gymnasium, Howard had plenty to holler about. The Vikings defeated Gainesville, 111-92, to post a 2-1 record against the Red Elephants this season. East Hall has now won 11 of the last 13 games in a series that historically could not be any closer.
The teams have played 110 times. The tally? Vikings 55. Red Elephants 55. Wow.
“It’s electric when these two teams play,” said longtime Gainesville supporter Bobby Wiley, 69. “It’s just super-charged. More so than any other rivalry I know of.”
Some say the wattage was weakened last weekend. Gainesville, a final four team a year ago, is struggling to stay above .500. East Hall has no starters back from last year’s team that won the Class AA state championship.
And quietly, several suggest that recent scrutiny of fan behavior locally has sapped some spirit from the stands. Hall County and Gainesville school administrators, prompted by what they called “disturbing incidents” of fan misbehavior, approved a resolution in December to weed out the jeers from the cheers at high school sporting events.
Gainesville’s famed student section — known as “Amen Corner” — was a no-show Saturday. Neither Howard nor Wiley had ever seen that happen before.
“This game, usually every seat is full, and they’re lined up three or four deep up there,” Wiley said pointing to the standing-room-only section above the bleachers. “So (the resolution has) taken two or three hundred people away from the game.”
Still, a couple thousand fans braved the rain and showed up Saturday. The stands appeared full by the start of the boys game. And the standing-room-only section had its share of occupants. It just wasn’t packed as sardine-tight as usual.
Howard and Wiley were on hand, to be sure. I sat with Howard during the first half, and joined Wiley for the second. I brought good luck to Howard and bad to Wiley.
There are no assigned seats in East Hall’s gym, but everyone knows which seat belongs to Howard. Front row and center, directly across from the scorer’s table. And it doesn’t matter to Howard that his seat of choice happens to sit in the middle of enemy territory.
“I can see the floor good,” said Howard, who works in the vending industry. “And I get to holler at the officials. That’s part of the game.”
Howard knows all of the officials by name, and most of them have gotten to know his name over the years, as well. They certainly recognize his voice:
“He walked. He did.”
“C’mon, he’s fouling him.”
“You missed that one.”
Even when Howard and the officials agree that there was a foul, he’ll often complain that the wrong type of foul was called.
“He got him with the body,” Howard yelled after an official said a foul was on the arm. “Bull.”
Howard likes to be close to the action. During football season, he carries the first-down chains on the sidelines for East Hall.
“So, do you sit in the dugout for baseball?” I asked.
“No, they have another guy that does that,” Howard said. “But they know I’m there.”
There have been a few occasions over the years where Howard arrives at the gym to find his block of bleacher already occupied. It never stays that way for long. And he rarely runs into the problem anyway. You see, Howard likes to arrive early.
The boys game started at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. Howard was at the gym at 4 p.m. to watch the early games.
“You gotta watch the little ones coming up, see what they’re gonna be,” Howard explained.
Howard’s wife Gracelyn, former assistant principal at East Hall, sits behind her husband at the games. She prefers not to sit beside him — Howard’s “sidekick” Jason Gibson does that.
Gibson, 23, is a North Hall graduate but says he’s “a Viking for life.”
Is he the front-row fan of the future?
“I plan to be, but he’ll probably be around ’til he’s 110,” Gibson said with a chuckle.
Howard was forced to miss an East Hall game recently. There was a dinner engagement he couldn’t get out of.
“I told coach (Seth Vining) I wouldn’t be there,” said Howard, who often talks to the team in the locker room after the game. “He’d wonder where I was at.”
Howard never stopped talking and never sat still for long during the first half Saturday. East Hall jumped out to a 50-39 halftime lead that had Howard jumping out of his seat quite often.
“You’re going to have more fun sitting down here with us than you are with that other guy,” Howard said with a big smile.
Wiley — that other guy — and Howard actually know each other well. Away from the game, actually they are good friends.
“To me it’s just a good, hard, clean rivalry,” Wiley said. “I pull for East Hall when they ain’t playing Gainesville.”
Wiley is 6-foot-6. He towers over Howard and most everybody else. For most of the second half, he sat with his long legs tucked tight to his body, his long arms wrapped around them.
Wiley attended Riverbend High, which existed before the small county schools consolidated into North, East and South Hall. Had he been born 10 years later, Wiley could have ended up a Viking.
The horror.
But all three of his children were Red Elephants, and since the early 1970s, Wiley has been one, too. I had been told that Wiley had a reputation for being rather vocal at games. On Saturday, there wasn’t much for him to be vocal about.
So we talked basketball. Gainesville-East Hall, in particular.
“It’s all these banners,” Wiley said pointing to the rafters lined with championships. “Gainesville has the same thing. They are the two best programs in Northeast Georgia, at least.”
And we watched as the players raced back and forth, on their way to combining for more than 200 points.
“One of my classmates who I played with got the idea that we could have played with these kids,” said Wiley, who owns a paint store in town. “I said, ‘Forget it.’ They jump higher. They’re more athletic.
“When I played, you couldn’t dunk it. It was a technical if you dunked the ball. There wasn’t anybody who could dunk it anyhow.”
With 5:38 to play, East Hall increased its lead to 86-66.
“It’s all over but the shouting now,” said Wiley, at the game with a son and three grandsons. “I think we’re going to slide out and beat the crowd.”
So I went back down and sat next to Howard again. He never leaves.
“That’s not a true fan,” Howard said of Wiley’s early exit.
“I’ll let you tell him that,” I replied.
“Oh, I will.”