Dougherty High still relishes 1998 football title

ALBANY — As the football season begins, all teams have one dream and one goal — to win a state championship.

Summer workouts are complete, the rosters are set and for the next three months, they’ll work to achieve that goal 48 minutes at a time.

At Dougherty High, you’ll not only see a team working on that same mission, but you’ll see proof that it’s possible to achieve. Outside of the Trojans’ locker room are clippings from the 1998 state championship team’s magical run that gave the city its first football title since 1959.

As current Albany State quarterbacks coach Uyl Joyner recalls, they were a team of unknowns coming into the season. But by the end of the season, everyone knew their names.

Joyner was the starting quarterback that year for the first time in his four years. Montavious Stanley, who was the defensive end and offensive guard, said not many people outside of the team believed they were capable of winning it all. Stanley spent time playing in the NFL and now volunteers his time to his alma mater. He credited the senior leadership as the driving force behind their postseason run.

“Everybody wanted to be accountable to each, and we really played for each other,” he said. “Everything just clicked. It was a feeling amongst each other that we weren’t gonna be stopped. Once we played with that heart and with that desire, we pretty much claimed the state championship in the beginning of the playoffs.”

That same leadership, particularly from Joyner, would come through at the half of the state championship game. Stanley said he remembers coach John Reynolds leading off with a heart-to-heart conversation in which he disclosed details about his failing health, while telling them how proud he was for making it that far. Joyner followed with a speech in which he told his teammates that they needed to win that game.

“I said I’m glad you’re proud of us, but we didn’t come here just to get here,” he said. “All my teammates got behind that and the rest is history.”

After defeating Peach County 27-7, the team received a hero’s welcome as they returned home with the city’s only title in more than 30 years, complete with a police escort whom Joyner distinctly remembered him being a Dougherty High graduate.

“He was really charged up about it,” Joyner recalled. “He was talking over the loud speaker, ‘The champs are back’ and it was a good thing. Once we got back, you could see a lot of people waiting on us and they had been there a couple of hours waiting for us to get back to the school. It was a big time welcome back.”

He said the welcome itself was a satisfying feeling, but more than anything, knowing they accomplished what they did with kids from the east side of the city meant far more.

“That means a whole lot to me because we take pride in everything we do on our side because we are the stepkids of the city,” he said. “A lot of times people say ‘What good come outta the east side?’. We really took pride in doing it with our neighborhood kids and doing it for our side of town.”

As the days pass, and the specific details of that day and that season get fuzzy, current Dougherty head coach Corey Joyner said one thing that still remains is the Trojan pride.

“The team gravitates towards that,” he said. “They know the history of Dougherty, they know the pride that is instilled here at Dougherty. So the team actually gravitates towards it, but we’ve just been a young team and we’ve kind of fell from grace as far as winning is concerned. But I see it coming back slowly. It’s not as fast as we want it, but it’s coming back slowly.”

What he really wants to instill in his team is the work ethic that propelled that ‘98 team to victory.

“The work ethic during that time with coach Reynolds and coach Hopkins, we felt like we could outwork teams,” he said. “We were bigger, we were faster and we were stronger and that’s what we were about, overpowering teams. And we’re trying to get that here right now.”

The work-ethic the championship team possessed led Reynolds to prophesy over his team and Uyl Joyner said it has come to pass nearly tenfold today.

“Coach Reynolds said this and I think back on it a lot now, he said everybody from this team is pretty much gonna be successful people and solid citizens,” he said. “He used to always say that because we had a hard-working team and he was right. Most of my teammates, especially my senior class, they are doing big things. I feel like sometimes I’m the one that’s not meeting my expectations.”

He added that the team still hangs out whenever everyone comes home and has a good time reminiscing on those days. August 10th marked 16 years since Reynolds passed and Joyner said he’s determined to keep the legacy alive through his own coaching career at ASU.

“He was the nicest guy in the world in his office, but not in the weight room or on the field,” he said. “I try to be like that out here. It’s business once we cross the line, but after we get off, you can come talk to me about anything. That’s how he was and that’s how I and all the other guys that coach try to be.”