Senior Night. It’s always one of the feel-good nights of any McCallie football season. Parents, grandparents and siblings all clustered together around each senior member of the football team, including student managers. And Friday night was bigger than most, what with 21 players and two managers being recognized prior to the Blue Tornado’s regular-season finale against Lipscomb Academy. And yes, that’s the same Lipscomb Academy that spoiled McCallie’s undefeated season a year ago on the last day of the regular season.
So one by one, in alphabetical order, the clock ticking toward the opening kick, the seniors were met by their families, pictures were snapped with head coach Joel Bradford and the large crowd in the Spears Stadium stands loudly cheered each one individually.
Eventually, it came running back Keylan Syam’s time to be greeted by his mother, Chrystell. The two hugged when they met. Hard. And for a long time. This was different than the other greetings between players and families. Chrystell had not seen her son since football practice started, a span of more than 100 days. The bear hugs they exchanged reflected that, overflowing with love and emotion.
Or as Bradford would say later, “To be honest, I got a little choked up.”
To that point, the whole evening could have choked up the most hardened hearts on the planet. It had begun a couple of hours earlier with a football alumni dinner in the Student Activities Center. More than 50 former lettermen showed up, all the way from 1959 to last year, including such all-time greats as Lawrence Mills, McCallie board chair Gary Welch, Michael Mathis, Jason Hall and Tom Clarke, to name but five.
Said defensive coordinator Ralph Potter, the head coach for many of the attendees who hadn’t played for Ralph’s dad Pete in the ‘70s, ‘80s and early ‘90s, “I was so mean to my players, I wasn’t sure anyone would show up.”
In truth, the younger Potter was so respected by those who played for him and worked with him that retired Baylor athletic director Austin Clark was on hand to show how much Potter, who once coached at Baylor, meant to him.
And the stories told at the dinner should never be forgotten. From Pete’s famous line, “We’re small but we’re slow,” to his mantra about “Blue Guts,” the dinner was a history lesson in why McCallie football is special.
Said Hall ‘02 -- who later starred at Tennessee with eventual NFL stops at Atlanta, Buffalo and Caroline -- of the event: “This dinner is the culmination of my career. We all miss this place and each other. It’s a beautiful thing to get back together with these guys.”
But if that reunion wasn’t enough to put a quiver in your lip and tear in your eye, after the seniors were honored before the game, a brief video tribute to the Potter family was played on the giant new video board as part of the official dedication of Pete & Ralph Potter Field. As Head of School Lee Burns noted, Pete and Ralph are surely the most successful father and son coaching pair in high school football history. Between the two of them they won a total of 336 games, with five state championships and one runner-up finish in careers that spanned 41 total years between 1973 and 2023.
As athletic director Kenny Sholl, who coached under both men, said earlier in the season: “The Potter family is McCallie football, and you could add Lorraine (Pete's late wife and Ralph’s mother) to that. The winning culture we have today, on and off the field, is almost solely because of Pete and Ralph Potter.”
But as touching as all the pregame activities were Friday night, eventually the Blue Tornado and Mustangs had to play a Division II Class AAA East Region football game atop Pete & Ralph Potter Field and Lipscomb struck first in the second quarter following a scoreless first period, which is also where Syam would soon make his considerable presence known.
From that 7-0 hole with 11:13 left in the second quarter, Syam would score three touchdowns before halftime on runs of six, one and 45 yards to give the Blue Tornado a 21-7 halftime lead.
And when Lipscomb scored the first two touchdowns of the second half to tie the game at 21, Syam scored again from two yards out to give McCallie a 28-21 lead after three quarters.
That lead grew to 35-21 early in the fourth as junior quarterback Elliott Drapeau hit Jacob Lamontagne from 14 yards out and Elliott Arnold kicked the fifth of his six extra points on the night. But then the Mustangs scored again to move within 35-28. Fortunately, junior defensive back De’Shun Tipton picked off a Lipscomb pass with about six minutes to go, that turnover leading to a 19-yard Syam TD with 1:44 to seal the win and move McCallie to 8-2 overall and 4-1 in region play in Bradford’s first season as head coach.
“This whole night was a tribute to our seniors and our program,” said Bradford afterward. “I’m most proud of how we responded throughout this game.The resilience we showed when things didn’t always go our way. We’re not playing our best ball right now, but Lipscomb’s a good team, they’ve got a lot of talent and we found a way to win. Really glad to get this one.”
The whole night was a love letter from Syam, who finished with five touchdowns and 181 yards rushing, to his mom.
“I wanted to play well for her,” he said.
Said Chrystell, who doesn’t speak English, through her son: “This was incredible. This is the first time I’ve seen him play for McCallie. I love it here. I’m so grateful for his time here, and how the coaches watch over him. What a great place McCallie is.”
Pete Potter first made McCallie great on the football field more than 50 years ago. Ralph later turned it into a juggernaut with state titles in 2001, 2019, 2020, 2021 and last year’s 34-28 win over archrival Baylor in the state title game.
But those are merely numbers for history’s sake. The Potter legacy goes far beyond that.
Said Hall when asked where Ralph stood among the coaches he played for: “He’s No. 1. First, he’s a principled guy. He was always going to win the right way. Great character. With Ralph, and I’ve heard his dad was the same way, discipline was love. As you get older, you appreciate that more and more.”
As this season rolls on, now into a quarterfinal home game on November 15 after an opening week bye, Syam’s impact on this team, both on and off the field, is appreciated more and more by Bradford.
“As I’ve said before, he’s our heart and soul,” Bradford said. “He just has a huge heart. This matters so much to him. He’s a leader. He’s a warrior and some college who grabs him is going to be super excited once they see what he can do on a football field.”
As the dinner drew to close before the game, Welch read a letter he wrote to “Little Pete,” Ralph’s infant grandson whose first McCallie game was last year’s state title win.
Referencing former headmaster Spencer McCallie III’s signature line, “We drink from wells we did not dig,” concerning the school’s remarkable history, Welch wrote: “Your great grandfather (Pete) and grandfather (Ralph) dug some pretty deep wells.”
And Keylan Syam showed a lot of Blue Guts on Friday adding to McCallie’s deep football history.