When the sports season comes around there is always a saying or a rallying cry that a team adapts for that season. In some rare instances though a saying becomes more than that, it becomes something different, it becomes an attitude that can overtake a whole community similar to the way the Clemson football program has adapted the phrase ‘All In’.
When the football season ended last year with a tough loss to Fort Dorchester, the Boiling Springs football program adapted a new motto when they reconvened during offseason conditioning and it has become the motto for this season, ‘Here We Go’. In the years that I’ve watched Boiling Springs football there have been teams that were capable of being really good but it always seemed like there was something that held them back from getting to the lofty goals and expectations they had coming into that season. With the success that the Bulldogs football team had last season and with so much talent coming back this year I was constantly asked by people, “Are the Bulldogs going to be as good as we hear?” It was a question that I could only answer with, “The talent is there, we’ll just have to see how it goes.” It’s not that I didn’t have the confidence in the team, it was the worry of the unknown that had always seemed to cause the Bulldogs problems in the past. As this season has continued on my fear of the unknown has started to fade and the attitude of ‘Here We Go’ has taken its place and it’s a feeling that has begun to spread amongst the whole Boiling Springs community. It was a motto that started as a motivational tool for the football team but it’s one that has started to take over every sports program at Boiling Springs. With the success of the football program it could be easy to overlook the success that has overtaken the whole athletic program. The end of last season saw Boiling Springs’ baseball and softball teams’ battle for region championships and the men’s golf team capture their third straight state championship. The success has spread into the fall also with the girl’s golf team, the competitive cheer team, the men’s cross country team and boy’s swimming team all capturing Region III-5A championships. When talking with coaches at the school, the success of the other teams has inspired their players to work harder in the offseason as they all want to be a part of the winning atmosphere. The ‘Here We Go’ phrase started as a motto for one team but has turned into an attitude of an entire athletic program. Where did the ‘Here We Go’ saying come from? The phrase was a creation of Bulldogs associate strength coach Joey Hawkins when he started working with the football team regularly in January. “It’s something that I just found myself saying a lot while the guys were going through our four quarter offseason training. A lot of teams adopt mottos for their seasons and I just realized that ‘Here We Go’ just fit the mindset and attitude that our players were bringing into offseason training each day. No matter how tough the training was each day, we would focus on getting better and each new day was a new opportunity and here we go.” When asked how he feels about the saying taking over the program Coach Hawkins said, “All the kids in the athletic department have really bought into the motto and rallied around it. Every sport has bought into the fact that they are just as good as any other team that they step on the field of play against. With the phrase ‘Here We Go’ each team gets its own name, the football team is the DPG (Dawg Pound Gangsters), the cross country team is the Long Haul Dawgs, the basketball team is the Hardwood Dawgs, the softball team is the Yellow Ball Dawgs and so on.” Coach Hawkins added that he has even given the community a nickname of its own and it’s the DST (the Dawg Support Team). When asked about how all of this support and pride has risen from one phrase Coach Hawkins said, “It’s like a tree and the ‘Here We Go’ was the first seed that was planted and has become the roots. The trunk of the tree is the DST because they are the ones that have helped support and be the source of strength for all of our athletes. The limbs of the tree are each of our teams and the leaves are the successes that each of our teams accomplish. Our football team is still alive for a Region championship and this Saturday the Long Haul Dawgs will be competing for a state championship.” Coach Hawkins also added, “All of this wouldn’t be possible if the coaches and players weren’t willing to embrace the meaning of ‘Here We Go’ and put the words into action. The fans also don’t know how much their support means to the coaches and the players because every time any Bulldog team walks onto the field and sees the support they have in those stands they just feed off that energy.” ‘Here We Go’ has not only become the rallying cry for a team but has become the attitude of a team, a program, a school, and a community.
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JamesBoiling Springs native, lover of sports and food. 15x SC Press Association Award Winner. I do some sports writing and radio every now and then. Archives
April 2020
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