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Coffeetown began in my car
A couple weeks stood between me and my final day as an Atlanta TV sportscaster in October of 2019. I needed to stay current in my media skills as I figured out the next move, so I experimented with a new Chinese clock app that let creators edit videos on their phones. The platform was called ‘TikTok,’ and its setup was perfect for ad-hoc content creation. It gave me a space to express some of the standup comedy daydreams I had when I listened to Lewis Grizzard, Jerry Clower, Jeff Foxworthy and Norm Macdonald. I always knew that if I ever had the guts to emulate their careers, a joke about high school football radio would make the routine.
Once you hear any number of calls driving down star-lit Georgia roads on a Friday night like I did as a local sports man, you know it’s perfect material. The over-modulated buzz, the home team bias, all of it. One evening, after a focused and intense mediocre workout at the local LA Fitness, I returned to my car with a clear mind and the kernel of an idea. Years of preparation met opportunity. In one instant, I had a cup of Jittery Joe’s coffee in my cupholder and a pair of old Apple headphones plugged into my iPhone. The next, I had Donnie Chuggs, Ronnie Chuggs and this radio broadcast of AA-classification Coffeetown High School taking on Mulchwood.
Lettin’ that turkey work
I received enough feedback from that first Coffeetown video to turn it into a Twitter series for the 2019 season. It went viral and eventually landed me a couple of appearances on the SEC Network’s ‘Marty and McGee’ program. Coffeetown was a household Twitter name in some households that liked high school football. What started as an impression paying tribute to every Southern high school football radio announcer I ever heard became a national phenomenon. It wasn’t just people from Georgia and Texas and Kentucky who told me they related to these videos. I heard feedback everywhere from Washington state to Washington, D.C.
Even with my new skills on display for all of the sports media world to see, no one wanted to hire a sportscaster who did a killer high school football radio announcer impression. Go figure. We had our first child a couple months later. Then we had the pandemic right after that. If the job market wasn’t kind to a dude like me before, it certainly didn’t help that there were no sports going on anywhere. I took a copywriting job and was fully prepared to hang up my proverbial media badge for good. Coffeetown didn’t feel right when so many kids would have to give up their real seasons that fall. But I ultimately received too much encouraging feedback to put Coffeetown on the shelf. And that was bad news for Ashley Holt’s Grave Digger tattoo, son…
Running to the whistle
It seemed like people enjoyed a fictional high school football team as much as they possibly could while all the real sports got watered down or canceled in 2020. Luckily for all of us, a real(?) fictional high school football team dominated the headlines to start the 2021 season. The Bishop Sycamore scandal validated everything I created in the Coffeetown High School football universe. Reptile Henderson and the boys were officially on the map.
We had an amazing couple of Coffeetown football seasons in 2020 and 2021. I knew there was still one season of stories to share in its regularly-scheduled format before the social media sketch ran its course. Beyond that, I had a new full-time job working in media again and there just wasn’t enough time to make them. So I made sure that Max ‘The Axe’ Bell and his Coffeetown Copperheads went out with a bang.
Growing the game
I let Coffeetown’s demise breathe. The dust settled. Now it’s time to let that turkey work again. The fictional stories from Coffeetown will continue and live here in the Copperhead Courier, right alongside true tales from around the country. Many of you asked, and the Coffeetown team store is back, too. My vision for this universe and this community has more layers than that, though. Instead of just making short videos that make me the center of attention, I want to create an environment that invites you to be a part of the team and the story. Lord knows you all have your own from your past or present as a high school athlete, coach, cheerleader, member of the band or radio announcer. I want to hear about the remarkable figures and programs in your own hometown.
You can submit story ideas for features that I’ll write about and integrate into Coffeetown articles and productions. Special guests will stop by and speak specifically about their own too-good-to-be-true high school sports stories. I also have a request portal for me to voice your own video highlights and work on tailor-made media projects. The Snake Pit message board is the place for you to share your own tall tales from yesteryear, play along with the latest news from the Coffeetown universe, and celebrate all that is pure and wonderful about high school sports. My hope is that this community will earn your premium membership and capture that spirit across the board. If that don’t light your fire… your wood’s wet.