Team Odd dominates annual Hartwell alumni flag football game

Team Odd walked out of Herndon Stadium with the bragging rights after a dominant win over Team Even in the second annual Harper Island Training Alumni Flag Football Game, a result that sent 75 former players back onto the field and turned a summer night in Hartwell into a full-scale reunion.

The game carried more weight than a simple alumni exhibition because it now has history behind it. This year’s matchup gave Team Odd a chance to erase the sting of the first game, when Team Even won 39-35 and Kendrick Harper scored two receiving touchdowns in the opener. That first result gave the rivalry a clear frame, and Team Odd’s response made the rematch feel less like nostalgia and more like an old scoreboard getting another chapter.

The event was built around more than the alumni game. The second annual Harper Island Training Youth Football Camp ran alongside it at Herndon Stadium, with former Hart County football player Mikendric Harper leading the effort to keep football in front of the next wave of kids. That pairing mattered. It tied the alumni game to the youth camp, linking the players who wore Hart County colors years ago with the children learning the sport now.

Hartwell’s flag football calendar already shows that this is bigger than one night in June. In 2025, nearly 200 players competed in season two of NFL Flag Football at the Bell Family YMCA, and Hartwell had become Georgia’s sixth hub for the program. That kind of participation explains why an alumni game can pull so many former players back to town and still feel like part of the local football season instead of a novelty.

The result also sharpened the hometown rivalry that has grown out of the annual format. Team Even’s 39-35 win in the first game gave the event its first benchmark. Team Odd’s dominant answer this time gave the matchup a split series and a storyline that already feels familiar to anyone who has followed Hartwell football for years. Alumni games do more than fill a summer date on the calendar in this town. They keep Hart County football visible, keep former players connected to Herndon Stadium, and keep the next generation watching the same names, uniforms and rivalries that shaped the people in the stands.