The Cloudland Highlanders are doing something super in honor of the “Superman”.
For the rest of the season, the Cloudland High School football squad will wear decals bearing the image of a winged Superman symbol and the No. 10, in honor of junior Dakota Blevins, a Hancock County football player who was killed in an car accident Saturday.
Roughly 500 decals will be made and distributed to Hancock County High School and the teams that remain on their 2015 schedule, which includes both Cloudland and Unaka High School.
“This is being done purely out the kindness of people’s hearts,” Cloudland head coach Brock Pitmann said. “Nobody is getting anything out of this but them.”
Pittman remembers a game with Hancock from two years ago, when Blevins was a freshman quarterback. During that game, Blevins connected a pass for a touchdown, making Blevins’ father, Phil Blevins, who is the head coach of the Hancock County football team, very proud.
“I just remember how proud he was,” Pittman said. “It has just stuck with me. I know it has to be tough.
“So I read some stuff about him and how he wore Superman and how a lot of his friends called him Superman,” Pittman added. Inspired by what he read, he called Bull Norman who works for Riddell sports equipment and explained what kind of decal he wanted.
“It started out just as an idea and turned into something pretty awesome,” Pittman said.
This year, the Highlanders play in the same conference as Hancock County, and the two teams will meet on Oct. 16. Seniors Colby Birchfield and Austin Whitehead remember playing against Blevins and said he was a player who fought hard and kept his team in the ballgame.
“It is such a tragic loss for Hancock,” Whitehead said. “We thought it would be a great idea to do something that would honor him.”
This Friday, the Highlanders will travel to Unaka High School, where the decals will adorn the helmets of all the players.