Randy Smith: Marion County Going Gold

  • Thursday, September 18, 2014
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith

It's homecoming week in Jasper, Tn., and this one promises to be very special. You see, as the Warriors take the field on Friday night, they'll be sporting a special gold ribbon on their helmets. It's being done to help raise awareness for "Childhood Cancer Awareness Month" as well as T.C. Thompson's Children's Hospital. The many fans and parents will also have a big pep rally on the town square before the game which begins at 7 p.m. Central Time, and as always the Warriors and their fans plan to have a "large" time.

What makes this so special is the involvement of parents of children who have already lost their battles with childhood cancer. One of them is my very good friend Pam Griffith, whose daughter Kennedy passed away almost two years ago.

In an email this week Pam wrote, "Our dream is to see as much gold in September as we see pink in October. Wearing gold is the first step toward greater awareness of childhood cancer.....awareness that will hopefully lead to increased funding, which will lead to more research, that will hopefully lead to a cure for all types of childhood cancer. But, there is another reason to go gold; it helps to heal the hearts of parents such as myself who have lost children to cancer. It lets us know that our children did not die in vain. Just to hopefully be able to help another child down the road is why we do this."

Wow...I just had to reprint Pam's words; they are so genuine and heartfelt, because Pam and Mark Griffith's daughter Kennedy staged one of the greatest battles ever fought for several years, until God finally said, "That's enough." Rather than being bitter, Pam has chosen to continue Kennedy's fight to help others. She mentioned the word "hopefully" twice in the paragraph above. Hope is something that she and her entire family had plenty of as Kennedy fought so valiantly for so long.

The Marion County Warriors who all knew Kennedy well, also understand what wearing those gold ribbons on their helmets mean. Stand out running back Blake Zeman wears a #1 on his  jersey and has dedicated the entire season to Kennedy.

I hope they raise a lot of money for T.C. Thompson's Children's Hospital, and more importantly, I hope that awareness will be raised greatly in the community. We can defeat cancer. We can prevent children from ever having to suffer the way that so many of them have through the years.

Way to go Warriors! 

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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.

His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.

He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.

In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.

To contact Randy: rsmithsports@epbfi.com

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