{"id":1791,"date":"2014-10-05T00:13:10","date_gmt":"2014-10-04T17:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/?p=1791"},"modified":"2020-11-01T04:05:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-31T21:05:36","slug":"houston-county-fighting-irish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/?p=1791","title":{"rendered":"Go Houston County Fighting Irish!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Houston County Fighting Irish 2014 football squad is a team to remember for all time.&nbsp; With&nbsp;stout determination&nbsp;and fearlessness they have battled all year to keep their numbers high but injuries have plagued them and their squad has&nbsp;dwindled to&nbsp;14, barely above the scant&nbsp;11 needed to field a team.<\/p>\n<p>But this is not a story&nbsp;about the quantity of that number.&nbsp; This is a story about the <strong>quality<\/strong> of that number.&nbsp; What is left in the&nbsp;numbers of this&nbsp;2014 Irish football team is&nbsp;a program&nbsp;that will&nbsp;be marked in history.&nbsp; These&nbsp;young student athletes&nbsp;play with the hearts of champions.&nbsp; These young men, and the school they represent, are the future and the strength of Houston County.&nbsp; They carry the mail for the County on Friday nights and they do it under a tremendous hardship.<\/p>\n<p>They are 14 hearts of stone,&nbsp;14 hearts of Irish green and gold.&nbsp; They come together, on Friday nights,&nbsp;against overwhelming odds to perform, to work, and to sacrifice.&nbsp; They endure&nbsp;this&nbsp;long season of hard knocks for their families and&nbsp;for their school.&nbsp; They withstand the fight against the 50-60 young men on the other side of the field&nbsp;every Friday night for&nbsp;their honor and&nbsp;for their pride and they do it&nbsp;for&nbsp;the nearly four score years of history making Irish teams that did it before them.&nbsp; But most of all they&nbsp;do it for themselves because these Houston Countians&nbsp;<strong>just won&#8217;t quit<\/strong>.&nbsp;&nbsp;In their hearts&nbsp;of green and white and gold they will not let their tradition die.&nbsp; Not on their watch.<\/p>\n<p>Showing up, representing?&nbsp; It&nbsp;is now a green badge of honor&nbsp;that this team of Irish wear on game night.&nbsp;&nbsp;They are Fighting Irish survivors and&nbsp;they are models of true grit, unyielding endurance, and dogged tenacity.<\/p>\n<p>They are the transition between feast and famine. They may be small in numbers and short on wins but they still share a common bond and a common connection with those heroic&nbsp;Irish teams of the past.&nbsp; They are hungry for another win.&nbsp; They sweat and bleed together from&nbsp;Monday through Thursday working to get one.&nbsp; They work out in the weight rooms during&nbsp;the winter and&nbsp;they run in the summer.&nbsp; They come together, all 14 of them now with their injured&nbsp;players,&nbsp;coaches,&nbsp;and legacy on&nbsp;certain, special Friday nights.&nbsp; In the&nbsp;fall of&nbsp;Houston County with a cool crispness in the air these giants of the gridiron continue a&nbsp;tradition of green Irish football pride.&nbsp; Its not just what they do, it is who they are.&nbsp; It is the true heart of green and white and gold all over.<\/p>\n<p>We can see it from Potneck.<\/p>\n<p>Many current Houston County citizens&nbsp;have stood on the Houston County&nbsp;fields of old&nbsp;and new and sweated and bled&nbsp;and gave their all for Irish green.&nbsp; Those&nbsp;Irish warriors of old are now called&nbsp;to return once more to the Friday night lights.&nbsp; Your young Irish players need you.&nbsp;&nbsp;On at least one Friday night this year, go and cheer&nbsp;loudly for your team.&nbsp; They will hear you.&nbsp; They fight the good fight for you, for your memory.&nbsp; Honor them now with your presence and your voices.&nbsp; Show them how proud you are of them for carrying your flag.<\/p>\n<p>Rise up, 2014 Houston County Fighting Irish Football Team.&nbsp; You stand on the shoulders of champions and they will keep you strong.<\/p>\n<p>Much honor and respect from Potneck to our southern neighbors in Houston County.<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=i&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=images&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;docid=I7P1KHTdn_Y8sM&amp;tbnid=VsqD617jAr2IfM:&amp;ved=0CAcQjRw&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fhoustoncochamber.com%2F2014-irish-week-events-cms-455&amp;ei=1E8wVKyBIcqRNorxgLgP&amp;bvm=bv.76802529,d.aWw&amp;psig=AFQjCNGkGsc3ezCW19RbXpFEQj55PXAG8Q&amp;ust=1412538680111837\" data-ved=\"0CAcQjRw\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 131px; height: 176px;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcThBTKp5zES6VU60xndC0Hehe0TAI46_4WbB6OFHewhzbrEyoG_KA\" width=\"507\" height=\"454\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>RLB4<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Houston County Fighting Irish 2014 football squad is a team to remember for all time.&nbsp; With&nbsp;stout determination&nbsp;and fearlessness they have battled all year to keep their numbers high but injuries have plagued them and their squad has&nbsp;dwindled to&nbsp;14, barely &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/?p=1791\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5467,"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions\/5467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potnecknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}