Tarboro High School will honor its 1984 state 3A football champions during Friday’s season opening game against Rocky Mount.
A pre-game social will be held at 5:45 p.m. in the THS gymnasium for players, coaches, support stuff and special guests.
At 6:45 p.m., Jim Brett, the coach of the Vikings’ 1984 state championship team, will be honored. The National Anthem prior to the Rocky Mount game will be sung by Myrna Kay Williams-Kinney (Class of 1985 and a cheerleader in 1984).
At halftime, the 1984 team will honored: cheerleaders, coaches, support staff and players.
After the game, a social will be held at Tarboro Brewing Company. Current Tarboro coach Jeff Craddock will speak to honorees and those in attendance will enjoy the game film from the 1984 state championship game against A.L. Brown (Kannapolis).
The Vikings were coming off a Northeastern 3A championship in 1983 and fans were excited to see what the 1984 season would hold. As it turned out, it was a history-making one for the school as it won its first-ever state football championship and finished 13-1 overall.
The opener against neighboring rival SouthWest Edgecombe and head coach Jimmy Tillman resulted in a 9-3 loss as an E. John Poindexter field goal were the Vikings’ only points.
Tarboro went into the next week against Rocky Mount having lost its previous six meetings against the Gryphons. The Vikings emerged with a 15-14 victory.
Tarboro went on a tear after that, winning the next eight games easily by averaging more than 44 points per game while allowing just over seven points on defense en route to winning the Northeastern 3A Conference title again.
The state 3A playoffs opened in Tarboro, where the Vikings handled Southwest Halifax 35-12. That set up a second-round rematch at home against SouthWest Edgecombe (the Eastern Plains 3A champions) and this time, it was different. Tarboro won 29-8 and advanced to the third round.
The Vikings then hit the road and were able to hold off Oxford Webb’s Warriors 14-6 to advance to the Class 3A state title game against Kannapolis Brown.
Back then, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association alternated host sites between east and west from year to year, so the Wonders were the home team in 1984.
The temperature hovered around 20 degrees at kickoff and it got colder as the contest progressed. The crowd, estimated at between 10,000 to 12,000, was about to be a witness to history as both schools were going for their first state title.
According to longtime Tarboro resident Butch Cannon (“Voice of the Vikings”) in an article he wrote for The Daily Southerner and later published in Welcome to Tarboro Magazine in conjunction with the historic game’s 40th anniversary, “Tarboro was one of the smaller 3A schools in the state while Kannapolis Brown was one of the larger ones. Their band was about 150 strong, Tarboro may have had about 50. When the respective teams hit the field, Kannapolis was about 90 strong while the Vikings suited up 42 for the game.”
Not only did Tarboro make history with a 20-0 victory over Brown, but the Vikings defense also did not allow a first down for the first time ever in a NCHSAA state title game, and it has hasn’t happened since in any NCHSAA championship game. The Wonders finished with a meager 34 yards of offense as they could not solve players like Bill Ewers, Greg Harrell, Carl Joyner, John Abrams and Donald Frank. The one first down Kannapolis did earn was called back due to a penalty.
On offense, Tarboro’s points came from a 30-yard touchdown pass from Darrin Bryan to James Brown, a one-yard run from Ricky Dozier and a late TD pass from Bryan to Frank. E. John Poindexter booted two extra points. Alaric Hopkins, Warren Davis and Maurice Lloyd opened the holes for Brown and Dozier.
In an interview with the Daily Independent in Kannapolis, Brett commented: “That was a fine football game and we are most happy to beat an outstanding team. I know that’s the hardest we’ve been hit all year. Our defense just played a super game and it took it to beat Kannapolis. We went into this game with the same idea that we had in our other 11 games. Scoring quick gave us a big emotional lift and then we had good field position most of the first half.
“Kannapolis didn’t quit and we told the boys at halftime that they’d come back. There’s no way to single out any player on our squad. Every member of the team is a state champion,” Brett concluded, lauding the hospitality that Kannapolis gave his team.
Brown head coach Bob Boswell said, “Putting it right to the point, we got beat by a better ball club tonight. We played hard but they simply played better. Give them the credit, but don’t fault my boys because they gave it everything they had and I’m mighty, mighty proud of each one. We’ll be back.”
This Tarboro team is part of the Tarboro High School Hall of Fame as well as the NCHSAA Hall of Fame.
And as the saying goes, the first one is always special.
(Butch Cannon, Russell Weinstein and the Daily Independent newspaper in Kannapolis provided information for this article.)
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