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Defending state champion Gretna will take on unbeaten Floyd County at 1 p.m. Saturday at Salem Stadium in the VHSL Group A Division 2 state title football game.

Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Gretna assistant football coach Layne Speigner (right) works with the Hawks' offense during practice on Tuesday. The Hawks, who have won three state titles since 2003, go for No. 4 on Saturday.

Although it wasn't always the case, many of Gretna's young boys long to wear a Hawks football helmet one day.

GRETNA -- The town of Gretna's old motto is gone.

Printed on a sign outside the community limits, the words once were there for all to see:

"Gretna. Ain't no big thing, but it's Growin'. "

So is the Gretna High School football trophy case.

When Gretna plays Floyd County on Saturday for the VHSL Group A Division 2 championship at Salem Stadium, the Hawks will be aiming for their fourth state title in the last six seasons.

Led by current Virginia star Vic Hall, Gretna won back-to-back Group AA Division 3 crowns in 2003-04 and steamrolled through a third unbeaten season last year as the Hawks rolled Gate City 52-0 in the Division 2 final.

All this for a program that once was one of Virginia's worst, producing a 44-game losing streak between 1991-96.

Current Gretna coach Chris Thurman, an Altavista native who played at Dogwood District rival William Campbell, recalls the not-so-good old days.

"When we played them when I was in high school, they were bad," Thurman said. "Nobody lost to Gretna."

That was until Robert Prunty changed the culture.

Prunty, now the head coach of the postgraduate program at Hargrave Military Academy, began to make football popular and fun at Gretna. He also started winning games, capped off by an 11-1 season in 2001.

"The kids, I think, were here but the program was so bad they just weren't coming out," Thurman said. "Prunty did a good job of getting the kids out.

"The basketball program was strong. They were all shooting hoops. But when you're going 0-10 every year, nobody's signing up to play football."

When Rob Senseney took over the following year and installed the spread with Hall at the controls, Gretna football exploded.

The Hawks posted back-to-back 14-0 seasons and Hall finished his career with a slew of VHSL records.

Gretna football has been good long enough now that one of this year's stars -- 6-foot-5, 291-pound lineman Bennett Fulper -- can't remember it being any other way.

"From the time I was 10 years old, I wanted to play football here, and that day finally came," Fulper said. "I looked up to every one of them."

Fulper, who has a scholarship offer from Maryland, now only looks up physically to Thurman, a former star lineman at James Madison University whose booming voice and 300-plus pounds command the Gretna practice field.

Thurman was a Gretna assistant under Senseney, taking over the program in 2005 with plenty of pressure on his hulking shoulders.

"He did a great job here, and to come in behind him is tough," Thurman said. "I mean the comparison is right there."

Senseney, who just finished his third year as the head coach at William Fleming, said he began finding himself knee-deep in a tide of rising expectations after winning the 2003 state title. Even though his wife is a Gretna native, Senseney left after the 2004 season to take a much higher-paying job at North Stafford.

"It got to the point where the expectations were out of control," Senseney said. "My third year there, we beat Dan River 42-21 and we got booed. I was like, 'What's going on?' "

Senseney said the boiling point came in 2004 after Gretna defeated Cave Spring 49-28 and edged Christiansburg 49-42 in a pair of Region III playoff games.

"Those two playoff games were my favorite games," Senseney said. "They were close and fun to coach. I remember going out to eat after that and people would come up and say, 'We're really down this year, huh Coach?' I said, 'What are you talking about? We're 12-0.'"

However, Thurman and Senseney credit the community support for sustaining the program's momentum, particularly in difficult financial times in a rural area. Boosters helped fund a 2,500-square-foot weight room during Senensey's tenure.

"The kids get whatever they want," Thurman said. "They take care of the kids. The school system itself is like everywhere else. They're strapped for money, but our kids don't do without."

And Gretna's coaches don't do without talent.

Thurman, who scored on two fumblerooskies in 1991 at JMU, including one in a 1991 Division I-AA playoff victory over Delaware, hasn't needed such trickery at Gretna. Simply put, his Hawks can fly.

Gretna is loaded with speedy playmakers. Quarterback Jayme Barksdale has 31 rushing touchdowns and 20 TD passes and he started practice as the backup to sophomore Nick Miller, who suffered a broken ankle on the fifth play of the Hawks' first scrimmage.

Miller passed for 2,036 yards as a freshman a year ago.

"My backup's got over 1,700 yards rushing and over 1,700 passing, and he was the backup for a reason," Thurman said.

Hall finished his career at Gretna with 13,770 yards of total offense, No. 5 all-time nationally. The UVa junior's legacy at Gretna is that other little Hawks know they can leave the nest.

"The great thing about him for our kids is he's never out doing something he's not supposed to be doing," Thurman said.

"He's not loud and boisterous. It's all by example. When he played here he never spoke. He never talked. He just went out and did his thing.

"I'm not going to say we don't have knuckleheads like everybody else -- we do. But we've had other kids besides Vic leaving here, going to school, and playing football and now they're graduating. Not only do the kids here see them leave, but they see them with good jobs now too."

Gretna first made postseason headlines in the 2003 Region III Division 3 playoffs for the wrong reason.

During a 47-8 first-round victory over Prince Edward County, an argument outside Gretna's stadium led to a shooting that left a 29-year-old man dead and a 16-year-old injured.

No shots hit the field, but players for both teams fled and the game was called.

"It looked like a herd of antelope," Thurman said. "They had all those athletes and so did we. You should have seen them jumping the fence and getting behind that building. That ended the game. Those guys were already telling us, 'Good luck, we ain't coming back.' "

Expect Gretna to keep coming back for more shots at VHSL championships. Fulper, who ranks No. 3 in his class with a 4.2 GPA, said there's not much else for entertainment in upper Pittsylvania County. Many of the jobs are out of town.

"There's a few little factories here and there," Thurman said. "Some of them make shoes. One of them makes wiring harnesses for dashboards. There's not a ton of work. It's tough.

"I'd say 75 percent of my kids are [from] single-parent homes. But they work and they get after it. They just want to play."

Yes, Gretna's old motto is gone. But it's still in force. Just listen to Fulper:

"Everybody takes pride in being from a small town and being good at football."