Today’s interviewee is Ringgold radio play-by-play announcer Frank Santore, who will be calling tonight’s Ringgold-Rockmart game that will decide the Region 6-3A championship. A victory would give Ringgold its first region title. The Tigers have played football continuously since 1949. Ringgold also can become the fourth team in GHSA history to finish a regular season 10-0 after going 0-10 two years prior. Schools that have done that are Wacona (1949-51), Cherokee (1961-63) and Dacula (1985-87). The Ringgold-Rockmart game and Santore’s call can be heard on WAAK Radio 94.7 FM.
Frank Santore, Ringgold radio play-by-play announcer
1. What’s the atmosphere for the game up in Ringgold? Any anecdotes that would express the excitement and what’s at stake? “This whole town in excited. There have been three exciting things to occur in Ringgold in its history: George Jones marrying Tammy Wynette, Carl Dean marrying Dolly Parton, and the 2011 tornado. This is bigger than all. To give one example: Our first-year public address announcer, Rob Forgey, is a very successful businessman in Ringgold. Prior to the season, he got his forearm tattooed with an elaborately, multi-colored Tiger tattoo! These kids are making grown adults do strange things!”
2. And for you, as Ringgold’s play-by-play guy for a few years, is this your biggest game? What’s it like to be calling a game like this? “Prior to coming to Ringgold, I had done play-by-play of over 400 high school football and basketball games in three states, over 600 minor league baseball games (broadcast Joe Mauer’s rookie season in Elizabethton), over 100 minor league hockey games and, finally, over 1,500 Division I sporting events in seven NCAA-sanctioned sports. Not that I’m Vin Scully, Jr., but I did the only radio broadcast of the last FCS Championship game in Chattanooga, have broadcast on Sirius/XM Radio, have broadcast on a 50,000-watt clear-channel outlet to more than half the country and did two NCAA Soccer Cup Sweet 16 matches and a first-round D-I NCAA tournament game at the old Georgia Dome. The past nine years have been the best of my broadcasting life. This game is truly the biggest I have ever done. The feeling doing this game is the same ‘butterflies in the gut’ feeling I had as a 17-year-old high school senior 45 years ago when I went out and played.”
3. How did Ringgold turned into a 9-0 team when two seasons ago it was 0-10? “One word: our senior class. Most of these young men have started for three consecutive years. In 2019, they faced adversity: 34 of the 78 players on the 2019 roster missed at least one full game due to injury. Of the 78, only four players, one starter, quit the squad. They never gave up. That group of young men is and always will be my favorite Ringgold team. They have grown and matured. Coach [Robert] Akins gave them a book - I forget its name - but the emphasis is that, basically, everyone is the master of his own fate. No one on this club makes an excuse. Everyone does his job. They play emotionally so business-like. Unlike me, who cannot contain his emotions, they will be Friday night emotionally the same as when they played Murray County or LFO. I have never seen a bunch of high school youngsters so mature.”
4. As the region statistics compiler, you’re certainly familiar with Rockmart. What’s worrisome about them? “Two words: extreme depth. Ringgold has developed great depth this year. But when you have a team like Rockmart, where (a) 36 of the 67 players on the roster have at least one tackle, (b) 15 have carried the ball at least once (six are averaging 7.8 yards or more a carry, with five having at least 37 carries), and (c) 14 players have scored points, you are facing a formidable foe, indeed. We knew their defense was good, but their offense has awakened the past month. They are averaging 400 yards a game rushing in the four games, and 525 yards total offense a game during the same time period. Finally, I think J.D. Davis, who is just a sophomore, is better now than Javin Whatley [former all-state quarterback, now at UT-Chattanooga]. He hasn’t thrown an interception at all this year (91 attempts) and has thrown only one interception in over 100 passes in his two-year career. This game is going to come down to one play, very late in the game. I might not be around to see it, for I may have a stroke before the game ends, due to the excitement.”
Produced by Georgia High School Football Daily, a free e-mail newsletter. To join the mailing list, click here.
About the Author
