hammonds adds luster to lopsided county-rivalry

The hiring of longtime Gatlinburg-Pittman assistant football coach Lee Hammonds as the new head coach of the Pigeon Forge Tigers football program could take what has been a lopsided, but heated, rivalry between the county’s two Region 1-3A high school football teams—Pigeon Forge and Seymour—to another level.

Hammonds was hired to replace former Tigers’ head coach Mike Bramblett on May 10 and has been in fast forward mode since.

The former Gatlinburg-Pittman offensive coordinator had no choice but to learn the ropes of his new position on the fly as he assembled a staff and organized the necessary details of the team’s off-season regimen with an eye on delivering the long-struggling Tigers football program from the cellar of Region 1-3A.

“I’m very excited about this football team,” Hammonds said. “This is a program with a lot of potential, with a good staff, good support and good kids.

“I took the job on May 10 and since then we’ve had a really good summer weight program and we really seem to be off to a good start. The reception for this football team has been really good, from the administration and down to the community.

“We’re all in this together—the administration, the staff, the players and the community—we all have to come together to help build this program.”

Seymour, the Tigers conference and county rival, has established itself as a region power through the years, usually finishing among 1-3A’s top two teams in the final standings.

The new Pigeon Forge coach wants to see his squad consistently competing with the Eagles, along with the other conference heavyweight—the Carter Hornets—for region championships.

Hammonds, the son of Gatlinburg-Pittman coaching legend Benny Hammonds, understands that in order for his football team to reach its ultimate goal, it must beat the Eagles—a feat no Pigeon Forge team has accomplished up to this point.

For a generation the most anticipated football game in all of Sevier County year in and year out was the annual intra-county battle between Gary Householder’s Eagles and Benny Hammonds’ Highlanders.

Householder and the elder Hammonds are East Tennessee high school football coaching icons that have combined to win hundreds of football games over the years. In the process, the longtime coaching rivals have succeeded at beating each other more times than anyone else has beaten either one of them.

Lee Hammonds was a primary figure on his father’s coaching staff through the heart of those glory years until the Seymour/Gatlinburg-Pittman series was terminated when the Highlanders dropped from Class 3A down to Class 2A four years ago.

The primary reason for G-P’s drop in classification was the decline in the number of the school’s overall student population, brought on at least in part, after a large portion of the school’s students transferred to Pigeon Forge High School when it opened in 1999.

Because of the heavy fan-interest with the football rivalry, Seymour and Gatlinburg-Pittman continued to face each other on a yearly basis even after G-P dropped to 2A. The classic series was officially brought to an end after the 2004 game, a 31-7 Seymour win.

Lee Hammonds is the third head coach at Pigeon Forge since the Tigers took the Highlanders’ place on Seymour’s schedule as the top intra-county and region rivalry.

Under Bramblett, a highly-thought of offensive strategist hired prior to the 2006 season, the Tigers finished 0-10 in his lone season that included a 48-0 loss to the Eagles.

Bramblett’s predecessor, David Ryan, guided the Tigers to back-to-back 5-6 marks in 2004 and 2005, but never managed to break the Seymour curse,

Ryan’s ’05 team struggled offensively, scoring eight points or less in five of its 11 games, but did manage to make the postseason playoffs by winning three region games. In fact, Ryan’s teams qualified for the state playoffs as the final team from the conference in three straight seasons (2002,2003,2004) but was mauled by a top team from powerful sister region, 2-3A, in the opening round on each occasion.

The 2005 Pigeon Forge team gave the Eagles all they wanted but was defeated 10-3 by Seymour in a defensive struggle in Ryan’s final year. It marked the closest Pigeon Forge-Seymour contest since the heartstopping 21-20 Eagles’ victory during the 2002 season.

The Eagles also defeated Pigeon Forge 35-6 in 2001, and 35-14 in 2003.

Lee Hammonds allows that the rivalry between the two county foes is significant, but says it’s not any more crucial than the other conference tilts when looking at it in the grand scheme of things.

“Obviously we’re two teams in the same county, in the same conference, fighting for a championship,” Hammonds noted.

“Coach Householder does a great job and Seymour is one of the teams on our schedule that we have to beat to win our region.”

Hammonds says the rivalry between Pigeon Forge and Seymour would be a showcase game with or without him.

“It’s a natural rivalry,” he added. “It has nothing to do with me or where I came from. But I do look forward to being back in Class 3A and playing those teams again.

“Our goal is to win our region championship,” he said. “And to win a region championship you’ve got to beat Seymour and Carter. It’ll be a big game, no doubt about it. But every region game is a big game.”