By Eric Lusk
Sports Editor
elusk@elkintribune.com

Elkin and Starmount have been fierce football adversaries almost from the day Starmount High opened its doors in 1967.

In the decades before that, Elkin shared a strong football rivalry with schools from the other side of the Yadkin River like Jonesville and Boonville.

But the Battle of the Bridge moniker now associated with the yearly Elkin-Starmount football clash is a relatively new phenomenon. The first official Battle of the Bridge was played in 1998, the brainchild of WIFM 100.9 radio personality Joel Hooper.

Hooper grew up in the area and loved the energy and atmosphere associated with Elkin-Starmount games each year. While there are many rivalries among Tri-County schools, this one just stood out to him.

“You have all these special games in college football,” Hooper said. “Two Big 10 teams (Indiana and Purdue) have the Old Oaken Bucket. Carolina and Duke play for the Bell.

“This game, Elkin and Starmount, is really special and it needed something. It needed a tag.”

The Yadkin River is the most obvious natural landmark that separates Elkin and Starmount’s feeder communities. But Hooper wanted to focus on something that brought those communities together.

His mind immediately went to the Hugh Chatham Memorial Bridge, a two-lane trestled structure built in 1931 that directly connects downtown Elkin with Jonesville.

“It’s the common bond between the two,” Hooper said. “And in some form or other, there has been a bridge there for a long, long time. I think there was a covered bridge there at some point.”

The Battle of the Bridge label was born.

The next step was to devise a prize to give to the winner of the annual Bridge game. It didn’t take Hooper long.

“I went to the bridge on a hot August day in 1998,” he said. “I started looking around and underneath the bridge. Literally within five minutes I found about a 20-pound chunk of the bridge laying there. It had concrete in it, and a little bit of granite and other rocks.”

Hooper collected his treasure and took it to a local trophy shop. He pitched his idea of turning the rock into a trophy. Since it weighed so much, the trophy shop at first wasn’t sure they could pull it off. But finally they came up with a sturdy base able to hold the heavy prize.

“I can’t even remember what I paid for it, but I paid for it out of my own pocket,” Hooper said. “Ever since then it goes to the winner of the game. They get to keep it for a whole calendar year.

“In the first two or three years, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. But it has gotten to be more so because the kids understand what it is. It has developed a life of its own now.”

Starmount won the first official Battle of the Bridge in 1998 by a 26-9 score, the first trophy in what was a state championship season. The Rams held onto it for two more years, romping 52-0 and 42-8 in 1999 and 2000.

Elkin finally got a taste of the Bridge trophy in 2001, with a 24-7 triumph that snapped a 12-game losing streak to the Rams.

The 2003 game, played on Halloween night in Boonville, may have been the most electric from a fans’ viewpoint. The Starmount stands were packed on both sides, with thousands witnessing Justin Billips rushing for nearly 400 yards in a 38-7 Elkin victory. The Elks went on to win a state title that season, the second of four in a five-year period.

“That was one of the biggest crowds ever at Starmount,” said alum Deana King, the Rams’ chief statistician and program historian.

While WIFM continues to pick Starmount-Elkin as its Game of the Week whenever it comes up on the schedule, the radio station is no longer the chief sponsor of the game. Since 2004, CMS Insurance and Financial has picked up the ball — and run hard with it, turning it into much more than a football game with a trophy as a reward.

It has become a big event for fans, as well as a fund-raiser for the two schools.

This year, CMS will provide a pregame meal for both teams. The group also donated to each school a couple hundred Battle of the Bridge T-shirts — one color for Elkin and one for Starmount — that the schools will sell for $5, keeping the proceeds.

Instead of the traditional “split the pot” drawing during the game, fans have a chance to buy tickets for a special halftime competition. Three fans from Elkin and three from Starmount will be chosen to compete in a “closest to the pin” game, where they’ll try to throw a football from the sideline to a pin dug in at midfield.

Each participant gets a cash prize, and the one who gets closest earns $250, with another $250 going to the school he or she represents.

This year, a second trophy will be added to the mix, sponsored by CMS. Hooper and WIFM radio partner Daron Atkins will pick a game MVP from the winning team. This is the first time the Bridge game has had an official MVP.

“It’s a privilege for us to be able to do this,” said Jed Metts, who is a partner with David Stillman and Rusty Crissman at CMS Insurance and Financial.

“We thank the schools for allowing us to do it. It’s just a natural thing for us because it’s such a great rivalry, with great history. We’re excited to be a part of it.”

In its 11-year life span, the Battle of the Bridge trophy has experienced a few rough moments. A TV sports anchor dropped it a couple of years ago after taping a segment about the rivalry with Hooper, breaking off a football figure that was affixed to the rock.

At various times, name plates have had to be replaced and parts of the trophy cleaned up.

In the early years, WIFM kept the trophy in its office during the week of the game. Once Hooper came in and discovered the trophy was missing. But it wasn’t any shenanigans by Elkin or Starmount fans, just a joke played on Hooper, who was getting ready to call the police to find “his” trophy.

In December 2005, the Hugh Chatham Memorial Bridge was condemned and deemed unsafe for motor vehicles. Ironically, the next Battle of the Bridge football game in September 2006 turned out to be a double-forfeit. Elkin won on the field, but both schools were later found to have used ineligible players.

Elkin kept the trophy for that year anyways.

The Hugh Chatham Bridge originally was scheduled for demolition this past summer. With that knowledge in mind, Starmount coach Scott Johnson stopped the team bus at the bridge after last year’s win in Elkin to pose for pictures.

Eventually, the Hugh Chatham Bridge will come down. It’s unclear if anything similar will ever be built in its place.

But as long as there is a Yadkin River, a town of Elkin and a Yadkin County, there should be something linking the communities. And as long as there is an Elkin High and Starmount High, the football game between the schools should be huge with players, coaches and fans.

Friday night’s contest especially looms large, with the winner moving into prime position in the chase for the Mountain Valley 1A/2A Conference championship.

Starmount is 3-0 in the league, 4-2 overall — riding a four-game win streak. Elkin is 2-0 in the MVAC, 4-1 overall — the only loss coming to independent schools powerhouse Charlotte Latin.

The build-up for the game began over the summer. WIFM will make the Battle of the Bridge one of its chief topics during its Sports Talk segment today at 6:05 p.m. when Hooper will interview both Metts and Crissman from CMS Insurance and Financial.

“It’s just a natural fit for us,” Metts said of CMS’s sponsorship of the game. “My kids went to Elkin. David’s girls go to Starmount. It’s great to sit back and watch it all happen — the excitement of the game, the sportsmanship.

“And we’re all still family when it’s over with.”