Milton taking ‘Joker’ approach to spoil Buford’s opener in new stadium
Milton coach Ben Reaves would love to leave Phillip Beard Stadium on Thursday night with the notorious smile of one specific movie character.
Reaves’ Eagles are scheming to spoil a massive night for Buford High School, set to debut its new $62 million football stadium in its season opener Thursday, televised on ESPN2 at 7 p.m.
“Some games, you just have to be mentally on a different level and walk in there with a different mindset,” Reaves told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Every now and then, I’ll bring out a few characters, and so this week, this game, I’ve definitely been alluding to the Joker from ‘The Dark Knight’ a little bit and just some of the fearlessness and the recklessness that he had.”
Anyone who’s seen “The Dark Knight” remembers the Joker strolling out of Gotham General Hospital as it exploded into chaos before he boarded a school bus and rolled away.
Reaves doesn’t want to cause any property damage, but leading Milton back to the bus after causing chaos on national television certainly has a villainous overtone.
A road win also would make a statement to the rest of the country after Milton lost 17 starters from its 5A state championship team last season. The Eagles, who beat the Wolves 13-10 at home to open 2024, would take another step toward national prominence with another win.
“We talk a lot and take a lot of pride that, at Milton, there’s never a rebuild year,” Reaves said. “It’s always a reload year, and so we want to go out and prove that we don’t have the guys that we had the last three or four years that were high-level players, but this program is built to last, built to sustain, built in the middle school years.
“And those kids are equally as talented, equally as good and ready for their time.”
Complacency can hinder the growth of programs fresh off a state title, but Reaves said that hasn’t been an issue for Milton this offseason.
The Eagles’ new starters have plenty to prove for themselves. A nationally televised season opener between teams ranked in the MaxPreps Top 25 was just an added incentive to improve through the spring and summer.
Milton did get some extra motivation this week straight from the Buford program. On Monday, Reaves tweeted a picture of Buford’s scoreboard following its scrimmage win over Langston Hughes last week.
The digital jumbotron still showed Buford’s and Langston Hughes’ logos in the middle graphic, but the score bug at the bottom was changed.
Milton’s logo had been swapped in, and the score had been played with, reading 70-8 in favor of Buford.
Reaves recognized that Buford’s coaches and administration were not at fault, but rather “whatever dad was up there running the scoreboard.” But that didn’t stop him from letting the joke fuel his team and fan base.
“Before anybody made them take it down, a couple people got pictures of it, and it made its way back to me,” Reaves said. “Of course, apologies were issued, it was all in fun, but it still was something that I wanted to make sure our kids and community saw and something that we’re going to use for motivation.”
Reaves hasn’t ignored the importance of Milton’s opportunity to prove itself on a national stage. Some coaches might downplay a game of this magnitude, especially in a 10,000-person stadium, but Reaves doesn’t believe that’s necessary.
After all, it’s not Milton’s first time in a larger-than-life stadium.
“Like we’ve been talking about all week, it’s a very beautiful stadium, and it’s one that they definitely should be proud of, but it’s also not something that’s going to affect our kids,” Reaves said. “It’s not something that’s going to cause our kids to have such a shock factor that they can’t play because the truth is, we’re used to playing in Mercedes-Benz (Stadium) year in and year out, which is a bigger and nicer stadium overall.”
Milton actually is a slight favorite over Buford, according to the Maxwell Week 1 Projections. But the Eagles are taking an underdog approach into the road matchup, a rare mentality shift for a program that went 15-0 last season.
Reaves said it brought him back to some previous Milton teams, where even in deep playoff runs, the Eagles weren’t expected to win.
“It kind of feels good to get back to those underdog roots, those ‘We’ve got to go play and prove it’ type of roots, just because that’s how these kids at Milton are built,” Reaves said. “People think that we’re just a bunch of spoiled, rich kids out here playing football, but these kids are actually blue collar, and they know how to work, they want to work and they want to do it for their school and their community.”
About the Author
Jack Leo is a sports writer and reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jack worked for the AJC throughout his four years studying journalism and sports media at Georgia State University and the University of Georgia. He's now focused on telling stories in the grassroots: bringing comprehensive coverage of high school sports for AJC Varsity.
