On November 20th, Travis Turner walked into the woods behind his home in Wise County, Virginia. Wearing a grey sweater and sweatpants, the uniform of every high school gridiron coach on and off duty. He did not bring his phone, driving licence, wallet, contact lenses, or any of the daily medications he is prescribed. The car keys remained in the house.
All he had in his hands was a rifle as he strolled into the thicket of trees and forest that eventually gives way to the forbidding mountains of Appalachia. His family claim he took this kind of wilderness ramble on a regular basis, but this time he never came back.
When news first broke of Turner’s vanishing act, the initial stories were of a sympathetic bent. Here was the curious tale of a beloved physical education teacher in his 15th season coaching the Union High School football team disappearing in baffling circumstances. Just five days before, his side had won their 11th game in a row. They were having an undefeated campaign that had captured the imagination of Big Stone Gap, a town mired deep in the heart of America’s put-upon coal country.
What could possibly have befallen this man everybody knew as coach though? A breakdown of sorts from the pressure of local expectation perhaps? An attack by some wild animal rendering him helpless?
Gerry Thornley: French clubs rescue Champions Cup and maybe even the wider game
Rory McIlroy crowned after career Grand Slam season — wins sixth AGW Golf Writers’ Trophy
‘For me it’s not swimming’: Daniel Wiffen lashes out against Enhanced Games
Ellen Walsh caps off brilliant week for Irish swimmers as provinces return mixed bag in Europe
Within days, it emerged the 46-year-old had left the family home in a hurry and was more of a fugitive than a missing person. No doubt tipped off by somebody in authority, he had shuffled off and out into the ether at the precise moment detectives were on the way to interview him as part of an ongoing investigation. Even deprived of the opportunity to interrogate, the Virginia State Police subsequently announced Turner had been charged in absentia with five counts of possession of child abuse imagery and five counts of using a computer to solicit a minor. Another so-called hero with feet of clay.
For home games at Bullitt Park, Union High fans line up outside 3½ hours before kick-off and a marching band parades down main street on the way to the field to get pulses racing. With a population of 5,000, the venue seats 3,500, a ratio that is a measure of their commitment. In Big Stone Gap, as in many small towns that feel overlooked and neglected by Washington, the natives are freshly invigorated each autumn by the sight of their kids donning helmets and doing battle with the boys from neighbouring hollers. Every year, the dream is to maybe navigate the playoffs all the way to the state championship.
As anybody who has ever read Friday Night Lights, Buzz Bissinger’s seminal work on rural America and the high school game or even watched the soap operatic television series based upon it, the winning football coach often becomes an exalted figure in these depressed circumstances. It’s a very peculiar, almost perverse type of adulation. To use old Irish analogies, the man on the sideline enjoys the respect once afforded the country guard, the reverence given to the parish priest, and the undying admiration foisted upon the intercounty player. A potent and powerful cocktail in a small community.
Turner came to the gig with a vaunted pedigree. Something of a quarterback phenom at Appalachia High (now part of Union since a dwindling population forced two schools to amalgamate), he departed to play college ball and briefly competed with the legendary Michael Vick at Virginia Tech.
Eventually, he returned home to follow his celebrated father Ted into coaching. Once boasting about having spent more of his childhood knocking around the field after his dad than he ever did at the family house, Bailey, the eldest of his three kids, was one of his own assistants this season. One of those charged with keeping the show on the road after Turner fled.
“We’ve had a lot in our city over the few weeks and our coaches are like, ‘Listen, don’t listen to any of the noise,’” said running back and linebacker Keith Chandler. “So, they’ve helped us out more than anything.”
In the first game without him on the sidelines, Union High defeated Graham 12-0 to punch their ticket to the Class 2 Regional final. There, they took care of Ridgeview Wolfpack by 21-14. Remarkable enough results given that the mysterious tale of their missing coach had by then garnered headlines across the country and attracted media attention from around the world. Last Saturday, their chances of going all the way to state were finally dashed in a loss to Glenvar, a fixture that inevitably got far more coverage than any Virginia high school clash for a long time.
The first snows of the year have recently fallen on southern Appalachia as increasingly macabre speculation swirls about what may have befallen Turner. Outlandish conspiracies about local accomplices spiriting him out of state and social media chatter about him skulking in hunting cabins or caves have ceded ground to more grim fare in recent days. The media focus is now on stories about how his body might never be found because of what wild boar, coyotes and black bears do to human cadavers in the mountains. In the meantime, Union High has scrubbed all evidence of his existence from their website. And the US Marshals are still offering a $5,000 (€4,300) reward for information leading to his arrest.
