Osceola-St. Cloud renew Florida’s 5th longest rivalry Friday night
Things that seem to have been around Osceola County forever: cattle ranches, lovebugs, mosquitos and the occasional hurricane in the summer and tourist traffic in the winter. There’s one thing in the list (Mickey Mouse has been a neighbor for only 50 years) that can’t hold a candle to the others, and one other thing: The century-old Osceola-St. Cloud high school football game.
As part of the fifth-longest surviving high school football rivalry in the state of Florida, Friday’s edition at Henry Ramsey Field at Markus Paul Stadium will be the landmark 100th meeting of neighbors separated by about 11 miles and the C-31 Canal that’s long marked the boundary between the two.
Ceremonies, featuring those who’ve played and coached in the game over the years, are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., with kickoff to follow.
Since the first game in 1925, a 6-0 Bulldog win, the Kowboys have mostly had the upper hand; they hold a 67-28-4 all-time lead and have won 16 of the last 17 matchups (on the field at least; St. Cloud had to forfeit back 2010’s 41-34 victory for dressing ineligible players). Osceola’s also had runs of 11 (1963-73) and eight (1996-2003) in a row. St. Cloud has two runs of three in a row (1941-44, 49-51) and last won two in 2004-05.
The teams met twice in 1927 and 1931, and did not play in 1942 due to World War II.
So, what is it about an annual football game that can bring out the best, and at odd times the worst, in people?
In the 1920s, Osceola County had about 10,000 residents — and they’d all often turn out for “The Big Game” to revel in a matchup of Kissimmee versus St. Cloud. It wouldn’t be until 1985 (Gateway) that the county got a third football-playing high school, so the game was the only chance to play a team from the area. Any other week, Osceola (founded in 1887) and St. Cloud (1909) traveled to or welcomed teams from Orange, Brevard or Polk counties.
Jeffords Miller, known around town as a longtime judge, was a lineman on the 1951-52 OHS teams that split with St. Cloud. Back then, Osceola was part of the Ridge Conference with Haines City, Lake Wales, Avon Park, Lakeland Kathleen and the like.
“Everybody came out, and quite often the Highway Patrol would have to escort their teams out of town back home, so ‘heated rivalry’ is an understatement,” Miller said. “Both teams had great players and great coaches when I played.”
Those who’ve experienced 'The Game" from the sidelines all say much the same about it: players on both sides saw each other in the community every other week, but they’d rather not cross paths that week as chirpy talk started about it early in the season. Those who played or coached elsewhere said nothing ever compared.
“No question, it was the most intense game I was ever a part of,” said Jim Scible, who coached OHS from 1973-81, then again in 1996-2005 after coaching in football-crazed Texas in between — his coaching staff led the Kowboys to their lone state title in 1998. “It was the first time in my career that you’d start working the weekend before to prepare for the next Friday.”
“It didn’t take long for me to understand,” said Doug Nichols, who came from his native West Virginia and joined Osceola’s coaching staff in 1990, coached with Scible, and was OHS’s head coach from 2009-20. “There was a time when (longtime softball Coach George) Coffey’s ag class kids would set up a travel trailer by the field during game week and sleep in it to make sure nobody from St. Cloud would do anything to the field.”
Let your imagination run on that.
Since the two have often been in the same district, and back in the day only a district champion advanced to the playoffs, the game’s had big postseason implications. That was just another reason that, in years Osceola hosted at the old Silver Spurs Rodeo arena, the crowd could swell to 10,000 people.
“It was always a big deal. When we went to the state championship game (in 1982), they played us tough with Brent Fullwood (a running back who’d play with the Green Bay Packers),” said Ken Baker, who coached OHS from 1981-85.
Tom Greer, who coached at St. Cloud from 1972-83, called it “a great era” for county football and that game, when it was played at “The Spurs” and at a field near where the St. Cloud Library is now off 13th Street.
“On the day of the game, fans of Osceola would drive to St. Cloud High and circle around at 7 a.m. honking horns and stuff to rile us up,” he said. “They probably passed our folks on the drive over, because our fans would do the exact same in Kissimmee.
“These kids played against each other all their lives. And the whole student body’d be involved, during pep rallies during the week, and at the game. At the end of the night, you knew it was a great place and time to live.”
John Wallauer, a player in 1968-69 and Bulldogs coach from 1993-2002, said he, “Spent many years worrying about stopping Osceola. It was a highlight to be a part of when it was the only show in town.”
The game was traditionally played the last week of the season until the mid-2000s. By then, Harmony High opened and became another St. Cloud rival, and juggernaut Lakeland became an Osceola district rival, so the game moved to the start of the season.
“It got to be that us playing Harmony and Osceola, and them playing us and Lakeland, back to back, was a lot of emotional energy to go through in two weeks,” said Mark Jackson, a Bulldogs player in 1990-91, their head coach 2006-09 and the current Naples Barron Collier coach. “But, when I played, Osceola was still a smaller county, and it always had a ‘Big game atmosphere in a small town’ feel that you’ll never forget.”
Despite winning the game in 1997, Osceola was still a district runner-up and had to go through their playoff run on the road each week. In 1998, the Kowboys needed victory to secure the
While the two have been undefeated a number of times when they’ve met, most recently in 1999, the 1995 game at the Spurs stands out — it’s recent, and it was the first time since 1951 St. Cloud won the game in Kissimmee.
“When we were freshman, we had it in our minds that we were going to win in the Spurs in ’95,” said Ricky Booth, who was a Bulldogs fullback and defensive tackle before he was a School Board and County Commission member. “We thought we could be good enough in ’93, but we had one goal in mind. We won the year before (9-0) to win the district in ’94.
"They had really good players, but we thought we were the better team … and then Osceola returns the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and I think we were down 21-7 at one point.”
But, the Bulldogs clawed back to tie it at 21 to send it into overtime, only to watch Osceola score first in OT.
“We’d been hanging on every play. It was nothing but angst on the sideline at that moment … then they kicked the PAT,” Booth said. “Then we got the ball and took the upper hand, and Marshall Smith runs it in for a touchdown. Suddenly, (defensive coordinator) Alan Baker sprints over to Coach Wallauer and screams, ‘Go for two and end this damn thing!’”
End it they did, when Walney Gray bounced a trap play to the outside and gave St. Cloud a 29-28 victory that went straight into school lore; the team was recently inducted into the St. Cloud Athletics Hall of Fame as a group. It would be another 10 years before the Bulldogs next won in Kissimmee, where Friday’s game is — many of the men quoted in this story will be in attendance.
So what do this year’s coaches, St. Cloud’s Mike Short and Osceola’s Eric Pinellas (an OHS running back 1986-89, splitting four series games) think?
“I told the kids to take it in and enjoy having a full stadium,” said Short, who watched the Bulldogs (2-2) use a huge second quarter to thump Winter Springs, 49-7, last week. Jacob Hernandez scored on a run and an interception return, and quarterback Logan King tossed three touchdown passes. He knows it won’t come easy.
“Taevion (Swint, returning from an injury) is a Division I back for a reason, and (Alijah) Jenkins and (Elijah) Hickson are dangerous with the ball. (Defensive coordinator) Brad Lennox always has his kids ready.”
Osceola, who won this game 42-3 last year, is uncharacteristically 0-5 after a 19-16 loss to Rockledge it led 9-0 at the half and 16-12 with a minute left.
“We had two red zone turnovers and really shot ourselves in the foot,” Pinellas said. “We’re going to be facing some quality kids on Friday, so we just can’t make these mistakes. On defense we’ll be seeing a lot of blitzes.”
And, after all these years, it’s a “typical” Osceola-St. Cloud game, with its District 4S-10 playoff implications — the Kowboys are in the district drivers seat with a win Friday — against what Pinellas calls a “typical” St. Cloud team.
But, since you only play your 100th game once … Friday will be anything but typical, even in there’s lovebugs, mosquitoes — and thousands of loud Kowboys and Bulldogs fans, students sitting or standing next to second, third and even fourth-generation fans.
