By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — In Galadriel’s opening monologue in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, she ominously states: “Some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth.”

Those words were written by the LOTR author J.R.R. Tolkien, not by me nor by Cate Blanchett, the actress who portrayed the ageless elf Galadriel.

As these words are being typed on a Friday afternoon for a Sunday paper — that will never feel quite normal — Rowan County football is in the process of crowning North Rowan senior Jeremiah Alford as the new all-time touchdown passing king.

Alford, which has a nice, kingly ring to it, will be the new ruler not only for North Rowan, “The Airport,” the traditional home of Rowan County aerial artistry over in Spencer, but soon for the county as a whole.

So let’s talk history, myths and legends and the evolution of the forward pass in local football.

The United States put a man on the moon in 1969. That’s historical fact, not myth. I remember that epic event, as we spent the majority of my ninth-grade science class at J.W. Cannon Junior High that fall discussing the wondrous feat that scientists, mathematicians and astronauts had accomplished the preceding summer. Talking about the moon landing daily probably saved our school from going up in flames, as I was a dangerous 14-year-old when conducting experiments with test tubes, chemicals and Bunsen burners.

What happened in Granite Quarry a few months after the moon landing was only slightly less astounding than Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” moment.

East Rowan head coach W.A. Cline, his staff and his team won 13 straight football games, the perfect season. Some remember it as the Year of the Mustang.

That team is historic, not mythical, it was real, but as Rowan’s only undefeated football team of the first 40 years after integration it also is shrouded in legend and myth. They had one player who weighed 200 pounds, but they overcame a large Concord team and a swift Shelby team in the playoffs to take the Western North Carolina High School Activities Association championship.

To refresh everyone’s memory, the WNCHSAA was an organization of only four conferences, but it was four conferences, all basically 3A-sized schools that were  — and still are — elite athletically.

The question is asked now and then whether East Rowan could have beaten Reidsville, the NCHSAA’s official 3A Western champion, or Elizabeth City’s Northeastern High, the school recognized by the NCHSAA as its 3A Eastern champion.

In the modern football world, the 1969 Mustangs probably would have had to wade through Reidsville and Northeastern in a long playoff process to win it all. What would have happened? We don’t know and we never will.

But back to the evolution of the forward pass in Rowan County. The two most famous athletes on the 1969 East team were receiver Johnny Yarbrough and quarterback C.M. Yates, although defensive lineman Willie Lowe was equally great as a high school football player. One of the  members of the WSAT crew interviewed a lineman from the 1969 East team last week and asked him to name some of his teammates. He mentioned Lowe first, then the Y boys.

Football fans try to imagine today what the 1969 Mustangs were like. East Rowan an undefeated champion? How was it possible? They must have thrown around like crazy, right? Well, that’s myth.

Coach Cline was a classic run-the-ball-and-play-defense coach. In 1969, East relied heavily on an unbreakable defense and a stout ground game. Yates and Yarbrough were juniors who shined during the playoff run. Yates actually missed the first three games of the perfect season, as he was injured playing Legion baseball. Yarbrough also was a baseball star. He reported for football duty after Rowan County’s Legion state champions made a mighty run. He also missed East’s 1969 football opener.

In the 10 games he suited up for in 1969, Yates put the ball in the air exactly 100 times — 10 passes per game. QBs routinely put it in the air 10 times now in the first five minutes.

But what Yates accomplished when he did throw the ball was revolutionary and unprecedented in the county.

To provide historical context, before Yates arrived at East as a sophomore for the 1968 season, the recognized all-time leader in Rowan County career passing yards was Boyden’s Eddie Kesler, who threw for a modest 1,631 yards in four seasons (1956-59).  Those Bill Ludwig-coached Boyden teams of that era were tough as leather boots. They won the NCHSAA championship for the state’s largest schools in 1955 and 1957 — but they played old-school, blood-and-guts, single-wing football. It was front-page news for the Post whenever Boyden launched a pass.

Yates threw for 3,910 yards in his three varsity seasons, so he destroyed the previous county record by almost 2,300 yards. His biggest season was  not 1969, but 1970, his senior year, when East’s defense wasn’t as dominant, and the Mustangs had to throw more. Still, he only aired it out 123 times.

Yates was the first in the county to put up major TD passing numbers — 12 as a sophomore, 16 as a junior, a whopping 22 as a senior — 50 in all.

Yarbrough, a tall, lean greyhound who would play baseball and football at Tennessee, reeled in most of Yates’ passes despite double coverage and sometimes triple.

Yarbrough missed three games in his high school career. Besides being sidelined for the 1969 opener, a virus cost him two games his senior season.

In 33 high school games, Yarbrough’s career totals were 136 catches, 2,863 yards and 43 touchdowns. He had nine TD catches as a sophomore, 16 as a junior and 18 as a senior. Those are insane numbers. He still holds the county record for career touchdown catches. Fifty-five years after Yarbrough, there’s still never been anyone quite like him in Rowan County.

There’s quite a bit of mythology surrounding Yates and Yarbrough, but the facts, the numbers, support their legendary status. They were game-changers for Rowan County football.

Yates’ passing numbers set the Rowan standard for a long time. North’s gifted passer Bobby Myers challenged those records in the late 1970s, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that Yates’ records started to be surpassed by quarterbacks playing for innovative North coach Roger Secreast, who was ahead of his time as far as spreading the field with quick wideouts and giving athletic QBs the freedom to throw early and often.

North QB Carvie Kepley, in four seasons, 1989-92, finally topped Yates’ county record for passing yardage with 4,637. Kepley’s. His career included North’s only appearance in a state championship game in 1992.

The marvelous quarterback who followed Kepley at North, Mitch Ellis, had two varsity seasons at QB (1993-94), but still managed to raise the bar for career passing yards all the way to 5,581. Ellis, who staged several massive aerial duels with West Rowan’s Tim Hogue, also was the first in the county to equal Yates’ long-standing record of 50 career touchdown passes.

The next record-breaking passer on the time line is North’s Mario Sturdivant, who threw for 6,556 yards at the end of the 1990s. “Super Mario” had three varsity seasons and topped Ellis by nearly 1,000 passing yards. He also shattered the county record for TD passes with 65.

Twenty-five years since he last cocked his arm and fire a missile for the Cavaliers, Sturdivant is still the county’s all-time leader in passing yardage.

But his mark for career touchdown passes has fallen.

BJ Sherrill, undefeated as the starting quarterback during an unbelievable run for West Rowan football, got to play 16-game seasons for unstoppable, perfect-storm squads that had everything. Sherrill played in a lot of games alongside the county’s all-time rushing leader KP Parks, but Sherrill still threw his 66th career TD pass in 2010 to top Sturdivant by one.

Twins Samuel and Seth Wyrick, a quarterback/receiver combo, made things exciting at East Rowan for three varsity seasons (2012-14) and broke numerous records. Seth topped Yarbrough’s career receiving yardage mark for the county that had stood for 44 years.

Sam broke one of the biggest county records. He threw 74 career touchdown passes, including 35 to his brother. He had five TD passes in three different games.

West’s Payne Stolsworth, who recently concluded a notable college pitching career, made a run at passing records from 2016-18. He benefited from the wheels of two of the county’s all-time top five in TD catches (Kortez Weeks and Jalen Houston).  They could turn a 5-yard slant into an 80-yard dash. Stolsworth finished with 68 TD passes, topping Sherrill’s school record, but falling short of Wyrick’s county standard.

The latest challenger to all the county passing records is North’s Alford.

This has been building for a while, an inevitable progression if he stayed healthy. Everyone has known Alford had a chance to do mighty big things since he was named as the Cavaliers’ starting quarterback prior to his freshman season.

Alford has been in a good situation. He’s played on teams that make the playoffs and get those extra games that are essential for breaking records, but not on teams so dominant that he’s no longer throwing passes after halftime.

Alford entered his senior season with 5,304 passing yards and 60 touchdown passes. After three games, he’s at 5,749 passing yards and 64 touchdown passes.

He recently passed 100 total TDs accounted for, as he’s always put up a staggering number of rushing touchdowns for a QB.

Alford was one short of tying Sturdivant’s school record for TD passes heading into Friday’s road game at TW Andrews and 10 short of Wyrick’s county record — with a lot of season still in front of him.

Alford has occasionally been spectacular — he threw five TD passes in a playoff game against a stout Robbinsville team — but mostly he’s been consistent, tough and durable, despite the demands of playing inside linebacker when North is on defense.

As records fall, the record-setting quarterbacks who came before Alford, are once again talked about and remembered, and that’s a good thing.

They are legends, not myths. Their place in Rowan County football history is secure.