varsity.roanoke.com

MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Fort Chiswell players Chris Rodriguez (left) and Hody Viars sit out a few plays after a water break during practice this week.

MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Fort Chiswell coach Steve James (center) talks to his massive offensive line during practice.

MAX MEADOWS -- Fort Chiswell High School's Pioneers were an underdog when they reached the 1990 Group A Division 2 Region C football playoffs.

They had ended the regular season on an ultra-sour note after being blanked 31-0 by Mountain Empire District champion-to-be Narrows. Expert predictions were borne out in their first playoff game.

Fort Chiswell got thumped 47-29 by Patrick Henry-Glade Spring, which had just dropped down from Group AA that fall.

Jerry Chrisley, the Pioneers' middle linebacker, was a junior that year. He and a number of his classmates were scheduled to return the following season for coach John Wayne Martin, one of the great characters and play-calling stylists in state football history.

"The next year, we thought we was going to be better than the year before because we had a lot of seniors coming back," said Chrisley, 36. "It just didn't happen. We just couldn't get things to click and go like they did the year before. ... We just never could get a full ballgame together."

The Pioneers went a hugely disappointing 2-8 that season. It was a bitter harbinger of heartache to come.

It would be 19 long years before Fort Chiswell would earn the right to play in the postseason again. Chrisley in his darkest imagination never dreamed that would have been the case.

"Lord, no," he said. "I would have been back at least in the next year or two."

This year's group has rolled to a 7-1 record and is in the MED driver's seat with a 2-0 record. Left on the league and regular-season schedules are host Narrows this week and a trip to Grayson County next. Neither has a winning record. In any event, the Pioneers are going to the Region C tournament for the first time since 1990.

It's been so long that Chrisley's son is among the football seniors who are the toast of an adoring community this year. Anthony Chrisley, all 6-foot-3, 350 pounds of him, is the center. Along with fullback Hody Viars and tailback Chris Rodriguez, Chrisley is one of the few four-year varsity players on the team.

On the subject of dreams, even in their most optimistic ones, the veterans may not have envisioned the happy events of 2009 after the 1-9 nightmare of their sophomore campaign.

"We've seen some pretty bad times here at The Fort," Anthony Chrisley said.

Viars -- a four-year starter at linebacker, with three-plus years as the quarterback and now the fullback -- is one of those all-ballplayer kind of guys who looks like he's built from a pile of river rocks. Loves football, adores sports -- one of the last football-basketball-baseball guys around. His memories of his 10th-grade year are bleak.

"It was miserable," he said. "Took forever to get through the year. I hated it. We were so bad. Then in practice, I'd get beat up because I was a sophomore."

The coach then and now was Stephen James, who hails from Wytheville and has a special appreciation for the manner in which Fort Chiswell has been typically regarded back in town.

"The county's red-headed step child," he said.

He knew he'd be up against it when he took the job five years ago. Since going to the playoffs in 1990, the Pioneers had not only never returned, they did not post another winning record until last year, when they finished 6-4. From 1991 to 2007, Chiswell's record was 52-98. A succession of three coaches had followed Martin.

"I told them this would my last coaching job," James said of his Fort Chiswell interview.

The sweet moments have been many for coach and players this year. None were better than beating George Wythe 28-21 on Oct. 2, the first victory over their nondistrict archrival in years.

"We're actually really good friends with all the guys from George Wythe," said Rodriguez, who does a little bit of everything for the Pioneers. "We wanted the bragging rights. This is the last time we [seniors] played them, so we have the bragging rights now."

Rodriguez is a 6-foot, 205-pound load who runs 40 yards in the 4.5-second range, plays cornerback and safety, punts, and place-kicks in addition to playing tailback. Viars (5-11, 200) has been in on 101 tackles at middle linebacker and averages 7.2 yards a carry at fullback. To hear them tell it, the real stars of the team are Chrisley and his fellow band of bruise brothers up front.

"We do like to intimidate," Chrisley said.

Some previously flattened opponents may still be digging out of the dirt. Flanking Chrisley is senior right guard Marvin Grubb (6-1, 245) and junior left guard Richard Smith (6-4, 350). The tackles are 6-4, 300-pound junior Michael Chrisley on the left (Anthony's first cousin) and senior Willie Taylor on the right at a relatively trim 6-0, 255.

With guys like that plus some substantial talent of your own, you can run for gains of 1,250 yards and 16 touchdowns on 164 attempts over eight games, as Rodriguez has.

"It's like having a moving wall to clear the path," he said.

James can't say enough about his two running backs. Go ahead and ask him if he thinks they're college prospects in all respects, academically as well as athletically.

"They should be," he said pointedly, indicating the recruiting process has not exactly been satisfactorily brisk.

The Fort is a no-nonsense I-formation throwback team. The Pioneers overpower their opponents and have produced three shutouts while limiting two other victims to a mere TD each. The one loss was to 5-2 Chilhowie on a wet field, 6-0 on Sept. 18.

Viars' given name Samuel has been supplanted by "Hody," the nickname his grandfather gave him as a tot. It's a playful handle, but the young man is all business off the football field (3.6 GPA) as well as on it. Of the loss to the Warriors, he's typically blunt.

"We didn't show up. We'd like to see them again," he said.

Danny Jonas, the athletic director at Fort Chiswell, has worked at the high school for 35 years.

"We've never had crowds to come to our football games like they have this year," he said. "When we played at Galax, we had the visiting stands filled. The band was on the track. The home stands were probably a quarter-full with our people."

One reason the team has been such a hit at the box office, in Jonas' view, is that they are fine human beings as well as athletes.

"They're a great bunch, tough but not mean," he said. "They're not jerks, just good kids."

Not just that. For these days and times, they're pioneers as well as Pioneers.