MEIGS — The thundering echoes of excitement at “The Grove” have been replaced by deafening silence. Bleachers that used to be filled with screaming fans have given way to empty cotton trailers and other farm equipment.

That’s because the Ravenwood Academy Red Raiders haven’t won a game in 27 years. No, they aren’t mired in a record-setting losing streak. They lost their alma mater.

Ravenwood, a private school founded in 1970, fielded its 18th and final football team in 1988 just before it closed due to financial woes. Memories are about all that remain from that time. Most of the school building crumbled to the ground in the 1990s after being torched by vandals.

“It looks like a bomb has been dropped on it,” said Clint Friedlander, a senior tailback on Ravenwood’s 1973 squad.

Terry Powell, the Red Raiders’ line coach in 1973, recently passed Ravenwood’s remnants in the middle of Meigs. He watched workers haul away decaying bricks and cement blocks.

“When I saw it, I didn’t think about what the men were doing — I was looking back in time,” Powell said. “My mind just drifted back to the days I was a coach. From the perspective of people, coaching and athletes, Ravenwood was an excellent place to be.”

The Red Raiders won only 68 of their 182 games — including just one in their swan song season — but their 1973 team was noteworthy. It posted a 9-3 mark and came within a whisker of winning the Southeastern Association of Independent Schools Class AA championship.

Powell said, “Out of the seniors we had, 80 percent of them could have started for any school around — Cairo, Thomasville, Moultrie. We had players leave those schools because they didn’t have a chance to play and ended up at Ravenwood and still didn’t have a chance to play because our athletes were on par with athletes from the public schools.”

Powell said Ravenwood’s roster was so deep that only four or five players saw significant action on both sides of the ball.

“They were hard-nosed, tough south Georgia boys who wanted to play football,” he explained. “They also had some leadership that knew a little bit about the game and was able to lead them.”

Friedlander came to Ravenwood via Moultrie. He said the Red Raiders didn’t lack anything his former team had.

“We did things that big-time programs do and I think we practiced as hard as the big-time programs,” he said.

During preseason drills at Spence Field, the Red Raiders took on public school teams, including Hardaway and Moultrie.

“Our coaches weren’t shy about putting us up against anybody,” Friedlander said. “It was good to know that our coaches had confidence in us and we had good players to play with some of those teams.”

The Red Raiders employed a power running game that featured Friedlander and Jerry Parker, another former Moultrie Packer. They combined for more than 2,600 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns.

“We tried to keep it on the ground as much as we could,” Friedlander said. “It was a pretty simple offense. We had probably seven or eight running plays. That’s about it.”

The offense was directed by sophomore Jimmy Anderson, a former Pelham player. He usually passed fewer than 10 times per game.

“I was an average quarterback at best,” Anderson said. “A 20-yard pass was a bomb for me. It had to be something rolling out. I was a halfback with the ball in my hand.”

Anderson didn’t have to be a star because he had Friedlander behind him.

“If it was down to the last play and I couldn’t have (former Oakland Raiders quarterback) Ken Stabler with the ball, I’d want Clint Friedlander with it,” Anderson said. “That’s who you want to have the ball on the last series because they will make something happen. Clint could make something out of nothing.”

Anderson felt like an outsider until a pivotal play during Ravenwood’s 1973 preseason jamboree against other SEAIS squads.

He said, “We were trailing against one of the teams we were playing as the clock was running out and (head) coach (Murray) Worsham kind of had his head down. I ran to the line and called ‘Raider Special.’ Clint passed me the ball and I passed it back to him — it was kind of a flea flicker kind of deal — and Clint caught it and ran about 50 yards for a touchdown and we won.

“From that moment, I was accepted. One pass did it.”

The Red Raiders opened the 1973 campaign — just the third in school history — with a 17-7 loss to Stratford Academy. Even though the Eagles were the defending SEAIS Class AA champions, Ravenwood’s coaching staff was not impressed with the outcome in Macon.

“Our coaches did not like to lose,” said Dr. Tim Willis, a 1973 Ravenwood tackle. “The next practice was ‘Black Monday.’ We practiced for about six hours. Parents started showing up at school wondering where their kids were.

“Two kids walked off the field that night.”

The tough practices paid off. Ravenwood won four straight games, including a 45-0 rout of Brookwood. Then, plagued by injuries, the Red Raiders dropped a 10-0 decision to Southland before reeling off five successive victories.

The final win in the string was a 13-6 decision over Riverview, a school that closed in 1992. It propelled Ravenwood to the Class AA final against Monroe Academy.

“That was probably the highlight for me,” Friedlander said.

Friedlander hit an athletic low point the following week when he was injured in a freak accident just five days before the championship game.

“It was the dangedest thing,” Friedlander said. “We were about to head to the stadium for practice. We used to drive our cars because the stadium was only a quarter of a mile away, but we had started going in a bus.

“I had gone into the gym for a swig of water and when I ran out to catch the bus, my cleats hit the concrete and I slipped. I caught myself with my left hand and broke it — the bone right behind my index finger.”

Things didn’t improve as the game in chilly Forsyth drew closer.

“We had always taken a Trailways (bus) for road games, but we had gotten some new school buses and rode one up there,” Friedlander said. “We were going to see a picture show up there but the show was closed and we ended up laying around in (Monroe Academy’s) gym all day long, about five hours, instead of having our normal routine. We wound up as flat as we could be.

“That’s just the way it was.”

It got worse when the game started.

“I bet we fumbled six or seven times after long runs,” Friedlander said. “We’d run 15 or 20 yards and fumble, and then run 15 or 20 yards and fumble again. We just shot ourselves in the foot.”

Forty-two years later, Friedlander still thinks about the missed opportunity. The Red Raiders had only one other winning season for the remainder of their football history.

“You don’t get that many chances to win a championship, so you have to take advantage when they come,” he said. “(The defeat) hasn’t haunted me all my life but, believe me, I remember the game vividly like it was yesterday.

“If we had played them in Meigs, I think we would have beaten them by 21 points. I believe we had the better all-around team, but they won the game. What can you say?”

Despite the hurt, Friedlander has no regrets about becoming a Red Raider.

“It changed my life completely,” he said. “I was in Moultrie and not doing well in school. I was just floundering around in class and playing ball.

“At Ravenwood, all the kids were studying, applying themselves and trying to do good in school. I decided, if I was going to go to school there, I would not be the dumbest one in class.”

Friedlander appreciated the school’s family atmosphere.

“Everybody’s parents knew you, liked you and tried to do things for you,” he said. “I met more folks there than I’ll probably ever meet again. They were good folks.”

Like many private schools, Ravenwood was born during the advent of integration. It had about 600 students in 1973.

“A lot of people think parents sent their kids to private schools because they were racists,” Powell said. “I didn’t find that sentiment. I didn’t go there for that reason. The people who were there was concerned about two things — the quality of education their kids were going to get and the fact that they didn’t like being told what to do by the government.

“Racism never came up.”

In 1973, a Ravenwood education was as good as its football team.

“It was an excellent school as far as academics,” Powell said. “They hired folks that were very competent to teach and made sure the school was accredited.”

“It had great teachers, good people and I got a good education,” Willis added. “I left Ravenwood and went to the University of Georgia with no problems.”

Ravenwood relied heavily on volunteerism. Its building — the former Meigs public school — was renovated by parents and its stadium, set in a pecan grove, was built by farmers in just a few days.

“That field was better than the one at Moultrie,” Friedlander said. “It was soft and had a good crown.”

Farmers also supported the team by stopping at practice occasionally to dispense cantaloupes, watermelons or boiled peanuts.

“There was a spirit of fellowship,” Powell said. “It was kind of like Mayberry — everybody doing their own thing and pitching in. It was like a family.”

The Ravenwood family started to shrink in the 1980s as farmers suffered through a poor economy. Enrollment dropped and the school suffered financially as a result.

“It’s very sad when you see a school close,” said Willis, who was joined at Ravenwood by his mother, the school secretary, and his siblings. His father was also the booster club president.

Anderson still tries to hold the “family” together through reunions. The last one was conducted at his house not too long ago.

“I’m thankful that I went to Ravenwood,” he said. “I made a lot of friends. I’d say my highlight was meeting my wife there.”

Willis’ sister, Cheryl Katz, still has the cheerleader uniform she wore while supporting the 1973 Red Raiders as a sophomore. She said her daughter was perplexed when she recently visited the rubble that used to be Ravenwood.

“She said, ‘Mom, it’s all burned out.’ I told her she just didn’t understand the memories there,” Katz explained.

Katz intentionally stayed away from the largely vacant site of Ravenwood’s stadium.

“I didn’t want to see it. It was always full,” she said.

Even though it no longer exists, Ravenwood is like a phoenix to Katz and her former schoolmates. It rises frequently in their minds.

“It’s sad that it’s not there anymore, but they can’t take our memories away from us,” she said.