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Rome Wolves head into 25th season
• Coach and players reflect on the first season in Rome football
history.
 By Tommy Romanach
Sports Writer
[email protected]
 08.17.16
Some said they were going to dominate Georgia, reigning in wins and state championships right and left. Some
said they would crash and burn, too busy getting in fights.
But Rome High's first football season, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this season, did neither.
Whether it was the painstaking logistics, the up­and­down season or the lasting friendships some players still own,
that first season meant many things to many people. But for that part of the team, the most important thing was the
experience itself.
"The season came to represent all of the folks who put so much into putting the school and team together," said
Danny Wiseman, who was the Wolves' first head coach. "So we wanted to make sure things went positively, and it
was a great transition. Could not be happier to be a part of it."
The Wolves went 4­6 their first season and failed to make the playoffs, but Wiseman remains positive about those
times. He was coach of East Rome before the merger, and he was chosen to be the first coach of the new Rome
High a little after his final season with the Gladiators.
Over the next seven months, the newly­coined Wolves would practice through the spring and summer on different
fields and different schools. Before any opponent, the first hurdle was be finding a place to play.
"I had a school in East Rome and one in West Rome and we had spring practice in West Rome, so that meant
busing all the kids who could not drive from East to West," Wiseman said. "Sometimes, practice is not starting until
4:30 p.m., and it was a problem."
Most of the East Rome coaching staff joined Wiseman at the new school with only a few West coaches joining the
new staff. However, West Rome players like Jason Self found the transition to be fairly easy.
Self, who played split end and tight end, was a self­proclaimed by­product of West Rome, attending West End
elementary before eventually going to high school across the street. He grew up bleeding green and white, before
turning those colors in for red and white his senior season.
But Self and other West Rome players simply approached the switch as if they were going to a new school. After
all, it wasn't like they were going to be interacting with complete strangers.
"Looking back, I went to Rome High with a lot of guys I went to church with. I mean this is a small town," Self said.
"You have to remember, there was only one mall, only a few hangouts kids went to.
Everyone knew each other."
After spring practice, the team then participated over the summer in a camp at Berry College. That meant cabins
with no air conditioning, jogging back and forth to campus and full­contact practices back when the GHSA did not
restrict them.
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Sam Burnham, an offensive guard who came from East Rome, notes that the same practice fields they played on
where the ones used during filming of Remember the Titans. And like the movie, a cohesive team began to form.
"We have t­shirts that say 'I survived Berry Camp,' and I'm not one of those 'back in my day guys but I'm telling
you, that was survival," Burnham said. "It was back on the mountain campus, and we had some players who had
probably never been that deep in the woods."
By the time school started, the football team had been together for a few months. Any thoughts of fighting on the
field had been long gone.
Rome High football began with a 22­12 win against local rival Coosa, but players like former guard Gary Johnson
noticed some irregularities.
Because while the team had taken on an identity over the summer, the fans were still adjusting. "People would be
on the sidelines hollering for blue and green not because you were cheering for blue and green, but that's what
you have done all of your life," Johnson said.
But the biggest realization of how things were different came in the next game, when the Wolves went about an
hour south to play Marietta High, leading to a 35­6 loss.
What hurt most was not losing the game, but the lack of familiarity with the team. Rome's schedule was no longer
filled with the rivals players and fans had grown up with. Now a much larger school, the Wolves had to play in a
region with schools that were further away.
It's an issue that Burnham, Johnson and Self all agreed was a problem for a number of seasons. While schools
like Coosa and Model continued their in­town rivalries, the Wolves felt distant because of their classification.
"It has been hard, not for the student body, but for the community as a whole, to get excited about playing an
opponent that does not have a face," Self said. "Especially when back in the day, not only did you know who you
were playing, your parents worked with who you were playing."
Game three was Rome's first home game at Barron Stadium, a place East and West had shared for so many
years. The opponent was Carrollton, and after falling behind in the first half, the Wolves began a comeback.
The game ultimately ended with Rome missing a two­point conversion to lose it late, 28­27. Wiseman said the win
could have been a springboard, but instead it sent the Wolves to a 4­6 finish.
It became clear that Rome needed an adjustment period to its new status, and Wiseman would not be part of the
ride after he was let go following the next season. But if there are any complaints about him from those first two
seasons, they certainly are not coming from the players.
"You can go all around time and try to beat the bushes and you won't find anything bad about Danny Wiseman,"
Self said. "Simply a class act."
Most of the players on that first Rome team still live here, including Burnham, who works for the Rome­Floyd Fire
Department, and Johnson, now a coach at Model.
Meanwhile, Self now teaches at West End, telling every future football player how he wore the Red and White just
like they will someday. Even Wiseman still lives in Rome, claiming he's lived in North Georgia most of his life and
doesn't plan on changing that.
The first season of the Rome Wolves did not involve any fights on the field, and it did not involve a trip to the
playoffs either. But it did feature plenty of stories that those who were a part of won't soon forget.
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"Little things like the different fields we played on, if they made a difference in our record I don't know," Johnson
said. "But they did make for some interesting memories."
LOOKING BACK AT THE MEMORIES
Here are a sample of photos from the 1993 Rome yearbook featuring the first Rome High School football team.
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