By By Bruce Hixon Sports Editor
T.R. Miller Tigers football coach Jamie Riggs has been selected to be an assistant coach in the upcoming North-South All-Star Game, which will be played December 21 at Troy University.
Riggs will be on the South team, which is under the direction of Prattville skipper Bill Clark. Mike Dubose (Luverne), Parker Baggett (Autaugaville), Doug Goodwin (Demopolis), Bob Newton (Homewood) and Kerry Stevenson (Vigor) will join Riggs as assistant coaches on the South staff.
John Mothershed of Deshler will guide the North team.
This year's North-South game was moved from summer to December and willcomprise of juniors only.
"It's a nice honor getting asked to participate in the game. I've done all-star games in the past, but never the North-South game," Riggs said.
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While the state football playoffs are supposed to be for the "best teams," this year's postseason field contained 31 teams with .500 or below records.
Fourteen of those teams had losing records. They included Hazlewood (4-5) in Class 1A, Hale County (4-6), Highland Home (4-6), Elba (4-6) and West End-Walnut Grove (4-6) in Class 2A, Dadeville (4-6) and Winston County (4-6) in Class 3A, Escambia County (3-6) in Class 4A, Northridge (4-6) and Blount (4-6) in Class 5A and Selma (3-5), Robertsdale (3-7), Grissom (4-6) and John Carroll (4-6) in Class 6A.
On the flip side, nine teams with winning records were left out of the playoffs.
They included Sunshine (6-4) in Class 1A, New Brockton (7-3) and Washington County (6-4) in Class 2A, Southside-Selma (7-3), Ardmore (6-4) and Childersburg (6-4) in Class 4A, Jess Lanier (5-4) in Class 5A, and Thompson (6-4) and Baldwin County (6-4) in Class 6A.
Last week's regular season finale at Southern Choctaw was the last for W.S. Neal tight ends/linebackers coach Marvell Davis.
Davis, a W.S. Neal graduate who will soon be moving to the Montgomery area for job purposes, spent four seasons with the Blue Eagles as a volunteer coach.
"Helping coach these kids has been a big part of my life. I'm really going to miss the players and the coaching staff," Davis said.