You know your stuff, Dayton. You're thinking of Tanner Neal, who I graduated with in '99, and played a mean safety at VV. We had a real good team that year and were cruising to a big showdown with Coldwater before we ran into Cincy Wyoming who finally beat us, led by future OSU recruit Richard Hall, who was simply unstoppable that night (I want to say he went for about 250 yards or so, and we had a heck of a run defense). (Too bad Hall never got his grades in order, by the way.) I was also at that 2000 Ironton game (it actually technically occurred in 1999, I think; either way, Ironton always had our number) and it was an absolute meltdown. The moment Strayer went down, the game went south. That game was also indicative of the risk taking that Niswonger lives and dies by. It's been a while, but I seem to remember him going for it on something like 4th and 5 inside our own 25 with four or five minutes left in the game. We didn't get it, and that was all she wrote. But yea, we had a sizeable lead when Strayer went down and there was no reason to keep throwing the ball all over the place.
You bring up a good point with some of the passing camps VV used to participate in way back when. I remember going to a party down in Highlands, KY my senior year with some girls my buddies and I met on spring break. Who should we run into there but Jarred Lorenzen, the Round Mound of Touchdown. Talked to him for a while and when he found out I went to Valley View all he could do was talk about how impressed he'd been with our guys, who had almost knocked off Highlands in a camp the summer before.
And my sister, who was friends with Brock's sister, tells me his dad really does have a room with pictures on the wall of the bodies of all the guys he's taken out. He was the former business partner of Larry Flint, too, if I remember correctly. Guy's a character.
