Punching Bags: A Homecoming Dream Date

Brian Goodall, a Crossland coach, during a homecoming game at Suitland, which later turned ugly. Suitland won, 13-0. (By Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)

If you're frequently asked to homecoming, that's a good thing, right? You'd be hard-pressed to find a Jessica or a Brittany or an Ashley who would argue otherwise.

But what if your name is not Jessica or Brittany or Ashley? What if your name is, say, Walter Johnson? Or George Marshall?

Then? Not so good.

The Walter Johnson Wildcats and the George Marshall Statesmen are among several Washington area high school football teams that have been chosen as homecoming opponents by three schools this season.

And just what do Walter Johnson and George Marshall, and the other homecoming dates, have in common? You figure it out: Marshall is 11-38 in the past five years, and Walter Johnson is 12-36. Other frequent homecoming opponents include Great Mills (6-44 over the same span), Crossland (11-38), Heritage (15-25), McLean (17-32) and Fairmont Heights (19-30).

One exception to the theory this season is Broadneck, which is 46-13 the past five years but is coming off a 4-6 season.

Playing in an opponent's homecoming game is new for Marshall Coach J.T. Biddison, a former assistant at traditionally strong Lake Braddock.

"Nobody wanted to play Lake Braddock for homecoming back in the late '90s," he said. "I came here, and we're like everybody's homecoming."

In these cases, being asked to homecoming isn't an invitation to dance, unless you count the figurative stomping that the home team plans to do all over the presumably accommodating visitors -- in front of grinning alumni, spit-and-polish marching bands and fussed-over floats.

It's no coincidence that most of the top programs aren't scheduled for even one homecoming, let alone multiple homecomings.

"It's pretty much just telling you, 'Wow, we're going to beat you by a lot, so we might as well [pick you for] homecoming just to make us look really good,' " said Al Vostal, a running back and linebacker at Walter Johnson. "It happens to us every year. But until we dig ourselves out of the hole we've created, we have to look at it as an opportunity to do something extraordinary."

The first stop on the Walter Johnson Homecoming Tour 2006 was Monday at Magruder. It probably didn't make the Wildcats (0-10 last year, 0-4 this year) feel any better that they were the homecoming opponent for an 0-4 team. The home team won, 48-7.

Marshall finished a promising 5-5 last year and is off to a 4-1 start this fall. The most recent win 8-7 at Langley -- an 8-7 homecoming victory. The Statesmen will also try to spoil the weekend at Jefferson on Oct. 20 and at South Lakes on Oct. 27.

"Definitely, some more [satisfaction] comes out of beating a team on their homecoming night," said Marshall's John Rehberger, a sophomore free safety. "You feel a little bit more accomplished to get that 'W' and say, hey, they scheduled us for homecoming game and we came in their house and took care of business. There's one objective during homecoming week, and that's to win the football game. It makes or breaks the homecoming."

Davon Pope, a senior running back at Fairmont Heights, said he learned early on in two-a-day practices that his Hornets would play homecoming games at Central, DuVal and Friendly. "It kind of made us work harder," Pope said.

All the pressure is on the home players, who, as coachspeak would indicate, have been distracted all week by pep rallies, bonfires and powder-puff games. "I'd much rather play somebody else's homecoming than my own," McLean Coach Rick Rivera said.

There can be distractions for the visiting team, too. Fairmont Heights Coach Stefan Gansert learned that a few years ago when his team got stuck behind the homecoming parade while trying to get to a game at Potomac (Md.). Now he arrives 2 1/2 hours before a homecoming kickoff instead of two.

Great Mills senior quarterback Cody Kohn, who probably has encountered as many homecoming floats over the past four years as anybody in St. Mary's County, said he relishes the opportunity for an upset victory.

"It doesn't get any better than that. Ruin their dance," he said with a laugh.

Kohn estimated last week that he has played in seven or eight homecoming games. "We're scheduled a lot."

Any wins?

"No. . . . Hopefully, we can do that tomorrow."

The final score Friday: Lackey 50, Great Mills 0.

There might not be any team that enjoys being the homecoming visitor more than Crossland, which has gone 7-13 the past two seasons after going 0-19 in 2002 and '03.

Despite those strides, the Cavaliers still think they're perceived as the 0-19 team, and they take the homecoming invitations personally. That made a 28-17 win at High Point's homecoming last year particularly sweet.

Crossland Coach Keith Howard recalled: "Our players were telling their fans, 'Hey, you've got to come to the dance with us. It's our homecoming [now]. Nobody wants to go to the homecoming dance with a loser.' Obviously, I didn't want my kids doing that. That's not the character we teach, and they were scolded for it. But what it was was the emotion: You picked me. You have no more respect for me as an athlete or a school than to pick us."

The Crossland-Suitland homecoming game Saturday was halted with about four minutes left, after a series of personal fouls led to the ejection of two Crossland players and one Suitland player. Another Suitland player had been tossed earlier in the game.

That was an extreme case of competitiveness bubbling over, apparently on both sides, but Crossland, and teams like it, are in an odd position as frequent homecoming dates: The Cavaliers are resentful of "being the homecoming ugly duckling every year," as Howard puts it, but at the same time, they want to play in opponents' homecomings.

"The kids get charged up because the band will be extra sharp that day, the halftime 20 minutes," Howard said. "We get turned on by a halftime of 20 minutes. You know, they may have some players walking on the field for whatever ceremonies and what have you. We're looking at them, saying: 'In about five minutes, we're going to be hitting you. You can go ahead and dance with the queen right now, but in five minutes, your face is going to be smacked in the mud. You picked me to do it, and we'll be glad to do it.' "

That's fine; just don't get any mud on Jessica's dress.

Varsity Letter is a weekly column about high school sports in the Washington area. Check out the Varsity Letter blog weekdays athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/varsityletter.