Demopolis won the 2005 state 4A baseball championship. And if any of the players or coaches are having a hard time believing it, they’re about to have a very tangible reminder of their accomplishment: a championship ring.

DHS head coach James Moody will hand out the rings in a ceremony preceding Friday night’s Demopolis-Bibb Co. football game. The ceremony will begin at 6:30 with kickoff at 7. A halftime ceremony would be impractical, Moody says, since several of the baseball players are current members of the DHS football team.

“The rings came in a week ago,” he added about the timing of the ceremony. “This is the first home game so we should have a good crowd. And as far as the players go, we should have all of them there but two. That’s pretty much the most we’re going to have at any one time. I hate that for them, but the majority will be there.”

The two absent players will be Chad Schroeder and Devin Goodwin, who will be traveling with their college football team, Delta State, as they take on the Texas State Bobcats. Moody said he doubted that any particular date would have worked for Goodwin and Schroeder.

But the ceremony will be a special experience for all involved regardless, Moody says, himself certainly included.

“To me, it’s an exclamation point on everything they’ve done. It’s the final stamp,” he says. “It’s a great honor and a privilege to give these young men a visible sign of what they’ve accomplished, something that they can show their kids and their grandkids and say they accomplished something special.”

Moody, who said he would “like to thank everyone last spring who was supportive of our team,” expects that wearing the rings will likely finally allow DHS’s title to sink in.

“That’s when it’ll hit ’em, that sure enough, we did do this,” he says. “I’m excited them. I’m glad for the opportunity.”