Why Friday Nights Are More Important Than Ever

Williston, SC—Up the road, away from the city…there’s a place that still shuts down every Friday night.

Coach Dwayne Garrick, Williston-Elko High School : “Kind of like the small town football, the Friday Night Lights, you know?“ Where everybody comes to the football game, all pull up with these young kids. It doesn’t matter if you make $5 a week, or if you make $5,000 a week, all these people come together.“

A place where things are measured by milestones…

Quantel Mack, Williston-Elko High School senior: “Hard work, dedication, that’s what we do.“

Where they’ve turned out years of muscle and fight and determination, where winning, has become a habit. If you’re a football player at Williston Elko High School…

Ondrew Bellinger, Williston-Elko High School senior: “My Dad did play…”

Chances are, you are just one in a long line of tradition.

Bellinger: “He was a quarterback, and that year, they won the field as well.”

Mack: “I had cousins, grandfathers; a lot of them played.”

Bellinger: “For Williston, the best part about playing is that there’s so much tradition, it’s like family here.“

Kendric Salley, Williston-Elko High School sophomore: “Being around these guys, you fall in love with them.“

Despite its wins on the field, the school sits in the middle of an area that has seen loss. In the last year alone, Barnwell and Bamberg Counties have watched six different plants close down…1,000 jobs…disappear.

Garrick: “I know the kids feel it, the town feels it as a whole, and we haven’t been hit quite as hard as some of the other places, so we’re fortunate.“

Mack: “It comes up time-to-time; we try not to stress it too much. You go to practice, and play hard.“

Here, Friday night, has become more important than ever.

Bellinger: “We do think about it, and it’s good that people can come to our games, you know, and they can forget about all those problems right now and just come out and see good old football.“

The economy hit, they hit back harder.

Garrick: “We’re 9 and 0.“

There were financial fumbles, they recovered.

Bellinger: “We come out here, we practice hard. They say practice makes perfect, but we believe perfect practice makes perfect.“

Salley: “We got so good, work and dedication, in the classroom, and on the field.”

They haven’t lost yet; they are still standing with a message loud and clear: you might shut down our mills, but you won’t take away our Friday Night lights.