By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Growing up in Kannapolis in the 1960s and early 1970s, the newspaper arrived like clockwork, tightly wound, rubber-banded and flung casually from the window of a passing car.

It landed with a comfortable thump in the family driveway, although occasionally in wet grass, five afternoons per week, plus Sunday morning.

The Daily Independent it was called. Every day but Saturday. I have fond memories.

California may have fallen into the ocean the night before, but my young eyes would have overlooked that rather sizable headline, because I tore open the paper, ignored the news of the day and went straight to the sports section. The wizard of sports in Kannapolis then was The Daily Independent sports editor Frankie Patterson. His “Frankly Speaking” column was pure magic, especially on Fridays when he endeavored to pick the winners for all of the weekend’s high school and college football games.

Frankie was a magnificent homer and would have picked the local heroes, the A.L. Brown High Wonders, to crush Paul Hornung, Bart Starr and the rest of the Green Bay Packers, even if that matchup was scheduled for the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Never mind that the Wonders were having their struggles with Concord just about every year.

As he picked winners, Frankie displayed a vast vocabulary, like he’d been born with a thesaurus attached to his right arm. He demonstrated in print every Friday for all the world to see that there were a million different action verbs that can be used when it comes to winners and losers in football games. “Alabama to pulverize Vanderbilt,” he’d predict. “Florida to flog Auburn. Georgia to wallop Kentucky. Stanford to stun UCLA. Clemson to dump Duke.” And on and on.

You could count on Air Force bombing someone every week. Navy was either going to capsize an opponent or get sunk by them. Teams were predicted to be edged, flattened, whipped, trounced, vanquished, knocked for a loop, slaughtered and subdued, but Frankie would only allow himself to use “beat” once a week. It was his thing. It was impressive stuff.

I hadn’t thought about Frankie and his predictions for a long, long time, but he crossed my mind once more when I saw the numbing “Concord Robinson 83, East Rowan 0” high on the alphabetical list of high school scores the Associated Press provided late Friday night. That hit me out of the blue. I didn’t have to look it up to know it was record-setting.

Normally, I’ll listen to at least some of the East games on WSAT because Ken Anderson and Glenn Taylor do a professional job on those radio broadcasts, no matter what the score is, but I passed on the Robinson game because I knew East had no chance and because I was able to rotate my attention between two fascinating games in the same league that were unfolding on my work computer — South Rowan at Central Cabarrus and West Rowan at Northwest Cabarrus.

I’m not sure how Frankie would have handled 83-0, but you can’t just say someone got beat 83-0. That’s not an ordinary “beat” or “defeat” or “prevail” and it’s not like Robinson made any extra effort to run it up or anything like that. It was 69-0 at halftime. Thank goodness for running clocks.

While East was annihilated, battered, smoked and routed, there’s just no way around that, I look forward to seeing what East can do Friday at home against Central Cabarrus.

East has played six straight games against teams ranging from good to great, six straight teams with records of at least 4-2. Central hasn’t won a game yet, but the Vikings have impressive-looking athletes, so I’m not predicting that East will mash, bash, thrash or smash them.

I am hopeful enough that I will listen for at least a while on the radio. You can, too, if you’re not going to the stadium to support the Mustangs on Community Night.

I’m also looking forward to seeing what West can do against a Robinson team that has a Shrine Bowl receiver and is capable of making a deep playoff run. West let a big one get away last week at Northwest Cabarrus and has to find a way to bounce back against the best team it’s going to see all season, well, at least during the regular season. Robinson hammered, mauled, torched and throttled the Falcons in 2023.

Friday’s games:

Robinson (6-0, 4-0 SPC) at West Rowan (3-3, 3-1 SPC).

West head coach Louis Kraft believes Robinson is state-championship good, but he also believes the Falcons will be the best team they’ve faced and he is confident that West, back to full strength this week, can rebound from its second gut-wrenching loss of the season.

The Massey Ratings like Robinson by 28.

West leads the series 2-1, but the Bulldogs swamped the Falcons 59-7 last season, in the first meeting for the programs since 2016.

Versatile Evan Kennedy leads the Falcons. He’s second in the county in rushing yards and fourth in receiving yards.

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Central Cabarrus (0-6, 0-3 SPC) at East Rowan (0-6, 0-3 SPC)

Central hasn’t won on the road in a long time. East hasn’t won anywhere in a long time. The beauty of this one is that someone gets a victory.

The Vikings are favored by 27, but the Massey Ratings do give the Mustangs an 11-percent chance of a breakthrough.

Central beat East 34-23 in 2023 and has won the last seven meetings. East is 8-26 all-time against the Vikings. East’s most recent win in the series came in 2014.

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NW Cabarrus (5-1, 3-0 SPC) at Carson (2-4, 0-3)

Northwest doesn’t look as strong as it was last season, but the Trojans are still quite good. They could have folded against West Rowan, but did not. They are favored by 35 to down the Cougars.

Carson has been banged-up some and has struggled to generate points. Carson’s defense couldn’t have played much better than it did last week at Concord, but the Cougars were still down 3-0 at halftime.

Including Northwest’s 37-0 win last season, the Trojans lead the all-time series 10-3. They have won five times since Carson won most recently in 2015.

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Concord (4-2, 3-1) at South Rowan (2-4, 1-2)

The Spiders were wiped out by Robinson early in the season, but  they’ve won their league games since then. South comes off an exciting road win at Central Cabarrus.

South has won 10 times against Concord, although seven of those 10 came between 1977 and 1984, when the Raiders were beating most of the people on their schedule. South drilled Concord 31-0 in 1984, but it’s been 40 years since the Raiders tasted victory in the series. Larry Deal was the head coach in 1984. One of his grandsons, Landon Deal, plays for the Raiders now.

Concord has won the last seven meetings and rolled 38-3 in 2023.

The Spiders are 29-point favorites to smack the Raiders. South is given a 3-percent chance of shocking the world.

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East Davidson (1-5, 0-2) at Salisbury (6-1, 3-0)

East Davidson made for a delightful homecoming guest for North Rowan last week, and now the Golden Eagles will provide the homecoming entertainment for the Hornets and their fans.

It’s not expected to go smoothly for East Davidson. The Hornets are favored by 41 points. East Davidson is given a 1-percent chance of achieving a mighty upset.

East Davidson opened the doors in rural Thomasville in 1961, combining two small schools — Pilot and Fair Grove.

East Davidson’s first football encounter with Salisbury took place in 1985, when Gus Andrews was piloting the Hornets. Under his watch, the Hornets got off to a 4-0 start in the all-time series.

East Davidson roared back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, winning five straight meetings, as Salisbury went through four head coaches in those five years.

The Hornets regained control during the Joe Pinyan Era and now lead the all-time series 21-9. East Davidson’s most recent win over the Hornets was in 2016.

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A.L. Brown (4-2, 2-1) at West Cabarrus (3-4, 2-1)

This will probably be the game of the night. A.L. Brown is favored by 1. The score projection is a 27-26 Wonder victory, although it looks like the Wonders should be underdogs on the road.

West Cabarrus has rocked two teams — Northwest Cabarrus and Lake Norman — that creamed the Wonders.

A.L. Brown has a 1-0 edge in Shrine Bowlers, with Auburn recruit Tai Buster.

•••

North Rowan (5-2, 3-0) is off this week. The Cavaliers will heal and prepare for a challenging West Davidson-Lexington-Salisbury finish.