December 19, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
“The Battle of Center Hill” will take on a little more significance next fall.
The Upperman Bees, a familiar regular season opponent of the DCHS Tiger football team in recent years, will be joining DeKalb County and the other four teams that make up Class 4A, Region 4.
As part of their annual rivalry, the Tigers and Bees a few years ago began competing for the “oar”, a trophy which symbolizes what they now refer to as “The Battle of Center Hill,” because the teams are on opposite sides of Center Hill Lake. The winner of the annual grudge match gets to keep the oar for a year until the next meeting.
Tiger Coach Steve Trapp said with Upperman joining the region, the two teams will not only be competing for bragging rights each year but for a region title as well.
“We have been in a region with them before but now they are moving up from Class 3A to 4A so they will be in the Region with us (DeKalb County) Livingston Academy, Macon County, Cumberland County, and Stone Memorial. The addition of Upperman is the only change in the makeup of Region 4. We like challenges and this gives us a chance to step up even more. These guys next year have that opportunity but we have a lot of work to do and we will be replacing a lot of really quality football players but we are excited about some of these guys coming in and up through the program,” said Coach Trapp.
According to Coach Trapp, the 2021 DCHS Football schedule will have the same opponents as this past year with the exception of Goodpasture, a private school from the Nashville area, which will replace Grundy County.
In addition to the region foes, the Tigers will also again meet Warren County, Cannon County , Smith County and Watertown next fall