It’s July of 2001 in Abingdon, Virginia. The scene is a Captain’s practice for the Abingdon High School Falcons football team. It’s well over 90 degrees and the air is wet enough to see the humidity and the scorching heat emanating from the asphalt track surrounding the school’s practice field. The high school’s first P.E. teacher and his students built the original track in the school’s first year of existence in 1959 out of cinders discarded from a local business. Now it’s lined by a seemingly never-ending row of pine trees that surrounds the practice field.
Coach Scott Allen is entering his 3rd year as the head coach of the Falcons.