And The Sign Said

"AND THE SIGN SAID"
By Sandy D. Neri ESDN

While looking through some old photos I came across this gem!

As you can see it is not a professionally built sign. No, it was made by a couple of guys in the summer of 1964...fifty years ago.

Why? Well let's flashback to 1961. Two school districts merged to form Triangle Area High School. It would only last five years.
We had a brand new school without a football field, so our home games were played at South Fork. There would be NO FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS for us.
Most other schools had lights and played on Friday night. We would just "Jump On The Bus (Gus)" and play Saturday afternoons.
After completing our third year of football we were still a school and a team looking for identity. OUR IDENTITY would be this sign
that's what Bob Ladika, Ron Mangus, Jim DeFrank, Mumbo Mehall & myself thought "So we made up our own little sign".

As I recall we didn't get permission from the school to build or erect the sign... it didn't matter! Again it was 1964 and Bob Dylan was on the radio singing
"The times they are a changin' ". It was our sign of the times. It wasn't pretty. I guess we just wanted to run out on the field under the sign so people would know
who we were as a team and a school.

We went unbeaten at home 4-0...only had 38 points scored on us in a 7-1-1 season.

I can't say that the sign won a game for us. Maybe that sign helped us come together though as a school district, and maybe we found our identity as the sign read
"We Are The Rockets Of Triangle Area" TRI HIGH!!!