Unrealistic expectations?

Tony Taylor ... best all-around athlete I ever covered.

A little prep football talk if you don't mind ...

I covered the 1999 Oconee County team that captured the Class AAA title, sitting on a temporary table on the top row of the bleachers, enduring what has to be one of the coldest nights in Watkinsville history, as Tyson Browning and Tony Taylor and J.T. Cape and Jeremy Phillips and host of future Division I-A and I-AA prospects cruised to the program's first ever championship.

The next two seasons were equally as fruitful for the Warriors, as they moved up to Class AAAA and reached the quarterfinals twice. But, after that, attrition took its toll. For a small, albeit a growing, community like Oconee County, it's difficult to remain at the top because it's hard to keep generating the types of classes like the ones that came through the school from 1999 to 2001. A Browning or Taylor is a once-in-20-years kind of talent, and that program was loaded with players like that.

But, in a small community and a new high school opening up just a few years back, you've seen groups of very capable athletes come through, but ones that can't hold a candle to the talent that was there during the championship run.

On the surface, one would think that everyone would get this. That those streaks are rare and should be cherished, but not in Oconee County apparently. Since the departure of Jeff Herron, who won the state title in 1999, the Warriors have had three additional coaches ... two have left (Jeff Arnette and Nick Saltaformaggio), while another was unfairly dismissed (Neal Auer).

I haven't covered high athletics around here in quite a while, so I never had the chance to interact with Saltaformaggio who resigned yesterday, but I did know Auer and Arnette very well. And the case of Auer, who was given the difficult task of taking a young and undersized team up into the state's largest classification in 2002 and helped transform them into region champions when they returned to Class AAA in 2004, is the most puzzling. Only one year winning the title and while making the playoffs the next year ... he was dismissed for no logical reason.

Saltaformaggio's abrupt departure makes you scratch your head as well. Granted, Herron's success and the run of those teams just a few years back raised the bar, but one also needs to have some sense of perspective too. Bouncing up and down through classifications, losing an incredibly talented and deep crop of players in 2001, seeing the school split with the opening of North Oconee in 2004 and, not to be glossed over, but changing head coaches every two or three years is a formidable set of circumstances for anyone to overcome.

Saltaformaggio's comments make it seem the boosters of the program were very critical of the team's performance and, with the dismissal of Auer still fresh in our minds, one has to wonder if a little patience is needed with regard to the development of the program.