Exploring the lengths of football and beyond

Cory Mull

EDITOR'S NOTE — This is the fourth story of a season-long, inside look into the 2014 Waynesboro football program. The series will appear every Tuesday throughout the season in The News Leader.





Standing in front of his team's end zone, his white polo sweaty from the evening's effort, Waynesboro head coach Derek McDaniel once again found himself trying to find salvo from a loss, this one, like the others, promising and not fulfilling.

Riverheads 35, Waynesboro 21.

Matt Everidge and his fellow Waynesboro teammates listen to a postgame rundown from their coach, Derek McDaniel, after losing to Riverheads on Friday.

He was honest. And he was hopeful. But he only really struck a nerve when he lost his voice, when his Southern drawl let out an expletive.

"[Expletive], it ain't about your effort tonight," he said. "It's not about that. We need to understand what's important, damn it."

At this point, with the nonconference schedule out of the way, this team is on the precipice of something.

The stands are fuller. The games are tighter. The belief is more alive than ever.

Yet the record stands at 1-3.

Just how good is Waynesboro? Just how different will this season be?

But for some, it's not simply a matter of football or bust. Success isn't predetermined by wins and losses.


Three fingers on the ground, eyes up, hips ready to pounce, Jaquarius Chambers walks through the footwork in his head.

Before the ball is even snapped, the senior, No. 55, a nimble, 6-foot, 220-pound defensive tackle, knows where he needs to be.

In the backfield. On the ball carrier.

Chambers flies to the ball when he can, lunges on to a ball carrier in the fracas, twists up a foot, or juts a helmet into a chest.

Tackle. Success.

Being out here, though, that's something else. Just to get back on this field, to be emotionally prepared, physically able, that's something Chambers still deals with every day.

In 2011 of his sophomore year, Chambers wasn't focused in school. A few weeks into the football season, Chambers wasn't himself. He had constant headaches. After putting off what he thought was just every day struggles, he asked his mother Leslie to take him to the doctors.

Chambers went to the University of Virginia and received two MRIs to examine his head.

The doctors revealed an issue much graver than he realized.

"They said I got hit too many times," Chambers said, "And they kept saying, 'If I got hit again, I could die.' They told me to sit out. I didn't even know."

Waynesboro's quarterback Chris Baker tries to get a pass off before being brought down by Riverheads players during their game on Friday, Sept. 19, 2014.

Chambers was told he had accrued at least three concussions in that same season, the last of which, he felt, happened against Western Albemarle.

"They said it could have been brain damage, it could have been worse," he said. "They told me if I sat that it wouldn't get worse."

Forced to deal with a matter more severe than the game of football, Chambers took the doctor's word and sat out the remainder of the year.

But the headaches persisted throughout the school year. They felt like migraines, stinging in the head, these incomparable pains.

"It kept messing up my vision," Chambers said. "I kept getting dizzy."

When his junior year arrived again, Chambers, plagued by constant headaches, decided he couldn't get back on the field.

"I wanted to be out there," he said, "But I couldn't."

Over his junior year, unable to play high school sports, Chambers picked up two jobs, working shifts at the local Kroger's food store and a McDonald's.

Nearly two years out of the game, Chambers, who was naturally built like a football player, with strong arms and a muscular upper torso, wasn't sure whether he would be able to play again.

He would attend games as a junior and wonder. "It was bad," he said. "When I came to games, it was like, it was bad."

Still, Chambers remained hopeful. He would watch his brother, Jequintus, now a sophomore on varsity, play jayvee football on a team that would go 7-3 in 2013.

By this season, Chambers wanted to give football another shot. The headaches were gone and he was ready.

Part of a eight-person offensive and defensive line unit, Chambers is a big part of the Little Giants plans in 2014. Back in the trenches, Chambers is hitting again.

"All I'm worry about now is playing on the field," he said.

Football isn't about life and death anymore.


Swiveling around a offensive tackle on Friday, the 5-foot-1 Marendon Jones sprung into the air like a leapfrog and landed on a Riverheads' ball carrier, a high-end play for an undersized outside linebacker.

In high school football, you won't find many players like him, guys willing to throw all of their weight into one moment, even if it's just for one play. Jones, a sophomore, still only finds snaps when the starters are gassed. He only has his moments.

He reminds you of a guy named Daniel Ruettiger, or to be specific: the former Notre Dame football player made famous in the film, "Rudy."

Though not just because of his size.

Waynesboro cheerleaders celebrate a touchdown during their game against Riverheads on Friday, Sept. 19, 2014.

It's his demeanor, his work rate. It's how he brushes off how size has given him any kind of limitation, least of all in sports. He goes so hard, sometimes his body won't even let him continue — in Week 2, he didn't come out of the locker room at halftime due to heat exhaustion.

"Because of my height, I kind of put more effort into it," he said.

But two weeks ago, something special happened involving Jones.

He faced off against his brother, Marston, in a varsity football game.

The pair's mother, Dawn, made the decision to move Marston to Stuarts Draft in his freshman year, hoping to sidestep personal struggles she said kept him away from his potential.

She moved him in with a friend in Stuarts Draft's school district.

But Marendon, who was in the same grade as his brother, stayed at Waynesboro. The pair would see each other frequently at the home, often playing sports like basketball and football to pass the time.

Marston, who's 5-foot-9, had the height on his brother. But Marendon, who was built short and strong, had the strength.

When the pair played against each other two weeks ago, Dawn had a decision to make.

"It was kind of difficult for me," she said. "I had to decide what side to sit on."

She ultimately sat in Waynesboro's visiting bleachers, but wore a shirt that bore both Marston's No. 23 and Marendon's 21.

For Marendon, the chance to play his brother was tough at first, though it washed away once the whistle blew.

"It kind of got to me before," he said, "but once the game started, I didn't really worry about it."

Later that night, the brothers spoke to each other.

"He thought it was kind of weird [that we were on two different sides]," Marendon said his brother said. "But we both said it didn't matter much. He was telling me how it was a good game."


Derek McDaniel, Waynesboro's head football coach, shouts to his players during their game against Riverheads on Friday, Sept. 19, 2014.

You can find Derek McDaniel inside Waynesboro's halls on most Saturday mornings.

At 3 a.m.

He's washing the team's uniforms, watching game tape, and then downloading it to an online software called Hudl.

There are 34 kids on the roster, so there are about four loads to do every Friday night.

The latest he's ever worked is until about 4:30 a.m. He went in at 7 a.m. the previous day. Wasn't the first 20-hour shift, probably wouldn't be the last.

Assistant coaches like Tom Goforth, Shawn Moran and Cory Clark typically get things started, though as a head coach, McDaniel generally is left to finish off the rest.

He's been doing it for four years here.

It's part of the job.

He lives in the hallways, knows that smell of locker room funk well, the way the floors shine particularly so on weekends, just after the maintenance guys have been on it.

Saturday nights, when he finally does find some time to himself, he mows his yard.

He goes out to eat with his wife at a place on the outskirts of town, City Basic Luncheonette, where the mountains peek just over his shoulder, and sits at the back of the place, in his favorite booth.

The waitress knows his order, so she grabs him a diet Pepsi and a water. His wife gets sweet tea.

McDaniel can finally relax. He eats. "That [expletive] is good," he says.

There isn't much time in the week for anything outside school and football. But on Saturday, he's got this.

His restaurant. His food. His wife. By 4 p.m. Sunday, after he's mowed the game field again, he'll head back into his office, that shiny floor as pretty as ever, and get back to work.

The beginning of the Valley District, and a date with Spotswood, awaits on Friday.

Waynesboro players lift their helmets in the air before leaving the field after being beaten by Riverheads on Friday, Sept. 19, 2014.