Friday nights in the fall in Jackson County, Ohio are like most Friday nights throughout the United States in the fall, especially the rural communities. It's Friday night football time.

For more than 100 years, and for over 70 years at night, Jackson County's three high schools have been battling it out for gridiron supremacy against schools from throughout southeastern Ohio.

While there are no state championships to lay claim to, Jackson County has still have many memorable football teams that have played in many a memorable game, and have their share of championships to show for it.

All three of the current high schools in Jackson County sponsor teams, Jackson on a regular basis since 1898, Wellston since 1908 and Oak Hill since 1919. Coalton, which closed in 1964 and was consolidated into Wellston, had football from 1939 through 1953 except for World War II.

The other three high schools in the county, also no longer in existence, Bloomfield, Scioto and Washington, never sponsored the sport.

It is Jackson who has had the most illustrious history on the gridiron, with 511 wins, 363 losses and 48 ties entering the 2004-05 season. They are only one of 34 schools entering the 2004-05 campaign with more 500 career high school football wins, and one of only three in southeastern Ohio.

The Ironmen, as they are called, have had periods of notable success throughout the years.

By the way, the nickname of the Ironmen was adopted in 1937 by the Downtown Coaches Association after they solicited votes for a nickname for the team to replace the unofficial nickname of Red Devils. The first vote received for the nickname of Ironmen was from then Columbus city auditor and Jackson County native James A. Rhodes, who went on to become Ohio's longest serving governor.

One of the most notable periods of success the team has enjoyed has been over the last 15 years. From 1990 through 2003, Jackson has compiled a 105-41 record, including six Southeastern Ohio Athletic League titles from 1990 through 1998.

Jackson's other notable era on the gridiron came when Coach Gene Slaughter came to Jackson from South Point, Ohio in 1952. After finishing 7-5-0 in 1952, his teams were 36-3-1 over the next four years and started a nine-year span from 1953 through 1961 in which Jackson sported an outstanding 76-11-3 won-lost record.

Possibly the most notable game in that time span occurred on Thanksgiving Day, 1954, when Jackson and Wellston met as undefeated teams, both ranked among the Top Ten teams in the State Of Ohio and battling for the Southeastern Ohio Athletic League title.

With a young Ohio State Coach Woody Hayes standing on the sidelines watching, Jackson won 21-6 and for the second consecutive year, ruined an undefeated, untied season for the county-rival Wellston Golden Rockets.

The game also marked the end of an era as it was the final Thanksgiving Day game ever played between Jackson and Wellston, who had met on that holiday since the Southeastern Ohio Athletic League was formed with both Jackson and Wellston as members on March 7, 1925.

Jackson is still a part of the Southeastern Ohio Athletic League, that will celebrate its 80th anniversary on March 7, 2005. It is the oldest continuous non-city league high school athletic conference in the state of Ohio.

Wellston remained a member of the Southeastern Ohio Athletic League through 1981, before moving to the Tri Valley Conference, feeling they could better compete. But the Golden Rockets also had success in the SEOAL in the early years.

After getting off to a slow start, Wellston did win back-to-back titles in 1936 and 1937. In the next 13 years, though, they won but 18 league games before rebounding in 1951. Under new head coach Ben Wilson, the 1951 team completed the school's only 10-0-0 season, although winning two of their games by just a 7-6 margin.

Wilson coached the team for four years (31-6-1 record) over that time, including the two losses to Jackson to end the 1953 and 1954 seasons which were the only blemishes on otherwise undefeated, untied seasons.

Wilson went on to the college level and was head coach at Wichita State University in 1971 when a tragic plane crash killed Wilson and many of the team's members.

Joe Malsimur, who later became the head coach of Youngstown State and was responsible for hiring Ohio State University Head Coach Jim Tressel to coach at Youngstown State, replaced Wilson and coached the team for three years, winning Wellston's last outright SEOAL title in 1957.

The Golden Rockets tied for the title the following year in 1958, then did not win another football title until winning back-to-back-titles in 2001 and 2002 in the Tri Valley Conference.

Jackson and Wellston have always been fierce rivals on the football field, dating back to 1898 and in 2004, met for the 91st time with Jackson having a more than two-to-one advantage in the rivalry.

Before the turn of the century, football was probably more a novelty, copying after the college game. There were no coaches, the players coached themselves. Most teams did, though, have a business manager who took care of gate receipts and other expenses the team might incur.

It appears the first game ever played by both Jackson and Wellston were against each other in October, 1898 and Jackson won 15-0 as touchdowns then counted five points.

Or at least the Jackson Herald was calling it a victory for the county seaters.

The Wellston Sentinel saw it differently.

"The Jackson Herald this week has a lengthy account of a so-called game of football between the elevens of Jackson and Wellston High School," the article said. "It is true the Wellston boys accommodated the Jacksonians with a practice game last Saturday afternoon on the gridiron, on the commons near the Wellston furnace, but as to its being a championship game, with all that it implies, this thought never entered the minds of either team," the article went on to say.

Although it appears that four games were played between Jackson and Wellston before 1908, Wellston indicated their first team of all high school players was in 1908 and other teams contained not only high school players but some players from the community as well.

Transportation was also an issue in the early days as there were no school buses and teams traveled from city to city by train.

In a 1905 Saturday afternoon game with Chillicothe at Jackson, the home team was leading 10-0 near the end of the game when Chillicothe scored what they thought to be a touchdown. The officials disagreed and ruled a touchdown had not been scored. The Jackson Herald picks up the story from there.

"Arguing over the question caused the Chillicothe boys to miss the afternoon train and they went to Hamden to catch the 11:20 p.m. flier that passes through there," the paper reported. "This, however, refused to stop and the boys did not get out of Hamden until about 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning."

It appears that Oak Hill fielded their first ever team in 1919 and quickly found success on the gridiron, going 18-3-1 from 1920 through 1922, including wins over Jackson and Wellston and two of the three losses to the powerful teams from Gallipolis. In matter of fact, after an 0-2 season in 1919, Oak Hill posted six straight winning seasons, something that would not happen again for nearly 70 years.

The Oaks, as is their nickname, did not have the advantage of a stable high school league to play in like Jackson and Wellston, although Oak Hill did try to join the SEOAL in 1937.

Oak Hill's first league was the Big Six Conference, of which they were a member from 1933 through 1938, the six years the conference existed.

They were charter members of the Southeastern Ohio Buckeye League in 1946, and remained there for two years, then in 1953 were charter members of the Ohio Valley Conference, a league made up primarily of Lawrence County teams and were a member of that conference until 1984, when they felt they could not longer be competitive with the bigger Lawrence County schools.

Oak Hill shared three conference titles in their 30 years in the league.

In 1986, Oak Hill joined the Southern Valley Athletic Conference with predominantly Gallia and Meigs county schools, and also hired Jeff Conroy to be their new head coach. Instant success was found by both.

Conroy was 37-3 in his four years at Oak Hill, and won first 21 league games and three league titles. Scott Bartholomew continued the tradition and had no losing seasons in his eight years at Oak Hill and posted an all-time winning record of 52-28 as in 1992 Oak Hill moved into the Southern Ohio Conference.

From 1986 through 2001, Oak Hill had but one losing season in 16 years.

The fourth school to have football, Coalton, started the sport in 1939. On October 13, they played Beaver, in what was also the first game ever for the Pike County team, and Coalton won 48-0. They finished 2-2 that year, beating Beaver twice and losing to The Plains and Rio Grande.

Coalton played for three seasons, then missed from 1942 through 1945 because of World War II. They rekindled the sport in 1946, having their best season ever with a 4-1-1 record, losing to McArthur and tying Blackfork while defeating Blackfork, Rutland and the reserve teams of Jackson and Wellston.

The Coalton Vikings played their final game on November 13, 1953, a loss to Russell, Ky. that ended a winless season of seven games.

Friday nights under the lights have certainly provided their share of memorable thrills and heart-breaking disappointments over the past century, and hopefully will continue to do the same for many decades to come.