Near the beginning of November, I was talking about the football season with Mayor Dwight Tankersley in his office. I wasn’t really thinking when I said this comment, but I did.

I said, “I’m glad the football season was almost over.”

Mayor Tankersley didn’t let me get away with that comment. He said. “Well, isn’t the state championship Dec. 1? … You know, because you said that, Hartselle’s gonna win it all now.”

More than a month later, I’m still eating crow for that statement, but I’ll happily eat it because maybe, just maybe, that may have helped push Hartselle over the hump.

Probably not, but at least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

Hartselle’s run to the state championship had nothing to do with anything I said or did, but it’s all what the players and coaches did to get ready for the season and how they executed their game plan each week.

However, I must note that this breaks a bad trend of being bad luck for the home football team. When I started my newspaper career, I worked at The Leeds News. The Leeds Greenwave, who had always been a competitive team, won seven games in three years.

When I left there in 2006, Leeds immediately made the playoffs in that fall and then won two state championships in football – and one in each basketball and softball – after I left there.

Then in 2009, I went to work for The Alexander City Outlook. The home team, Benjamin Russell High School, had just hired Clay County legend Danny Horn to become their coach. The Wildcats and Horn had their two worst seasons on record, going 1-9 in back-to-back years.

I left Alexander City in January to come here and the Wildcats made it to the second round of the state playoffs. Because of reclassification, they dropped to Class 5A and could potentially meet Hartselle in a state championship game in the future.

But thank God for Hartselle. The Tigers are 15-0 while I’m here and I’m ecstatic. I know the Tigers will lose again, but I hope it’s not for a long time. Go Tigers!

Brent Maze is the managing editor of the Hartselle Enquirer.