Canoeing and hiking in the Appalachian Mountains for a week may not have anything to do with the game of football, but for one local player, the parallel between the two ended up sharing a few things in common.

T.R. Miller Tiger senior football player Edward Hines recently embarked on a weeklong adventure in the Appalachian Mountains and French Broad River in Asheville, N.C.

“My parents (who found out about the trip from some relatives) wanted me to go on the trip because they thought it would make me learn more about myself,” Hines said. “I really did not want to go, but they finally talked me into going so I went. I didn’t like it at all at first. I got real homesick and wanted to go home, but I decided to stay through it and it ended up being a pretty good trip.”

Hines’ mother Sarah said she and her husband Ed read up on Outward Bound after hearing about it from some of their nieces and nephews.

“The focus of Outward Bound is on ‘core values’ such as courage, trust, integrity, compassion and cooperation,” Sarah said. “Their courses take you out of your comfort zone and encourage you to do difficult things. Working so closely with a group, you learn how your actions impact your team as well as yourself. Even though Edward wasn’t ‘looking forward’ to this adventure, we feel like he made some good friends, learned a lot and even enjoyed it.”

For the first three days of the trip, Hines said he and the 10 other people on the trip canoed on the French Broad River.

“We would canoe all day and then stop and spend the night somewhere alongside the river,” Hines said. “We would do this same thing again for the next three days. After the third day, we stopped and got on these trails and hiked around the Appalachian Mountains. The final day, we ended up at the Outward Bound base camp where we finally got to take a shower and go home.”

Although Hines said the trip was a good experience and it is not something he would want to do again, he said it has helped him with his game of football this season.

“I have benefited from it,” Hines said. “With 10 or 11 other people, it taught me that I could not quit and I had to stay with it. We had to come together and overcome adversity as a team, so it helped to do that because we all went through some difficult times at one point and time or another on the trip.”

This 2010 senior season of football has been a difficult season to overcome for Hines and others as well on the team.

Just a few days into the start of the school year, T.R. Miller suffered the loss of principal Donnie Rotch in a tragic car accident that not only left a hole in the hearts of the school, but also the community.

In the first game of the football season, the Tigers lost to county rival Escambia County 35-34 in overtime and lost to region opponent Bayside Academy the next week on the road 27-20 to start the season 0-2 for the first time since 1989.

Since then, the Tigers have won four straight games including last week’s win over Clarke County that saw the Tigers trail 26-14 at the half before shutting down Clarke County in the second half for a 34-26 win.

“I think the season has gone very well based on what happened in those first two games,” Hines said. “I think we have done a great job turning it around and basically coming more together as a team and winning a bunch of games in the second half like Clarke County and to just coming out and playing like T.R. Miller.”

Earlier in the week, Tiger head coach Jamie Riggs said the word courage came to his mind when describing the 2010 T.R. Miller Tigers and Hines said he agreed.

“I see the same thing,” Hines said. “We are playing all these teams that seem a lot bigger and faster than we are and we just come out there and just do our thing. We do what we were coached to do. The coaches have done a great job of finding and correcting the problems of what has been wrong with us. We have done a great job at practice also trying to fix those problems.”

As for Hines personally, Hines said he has plans for college, but he would not play football after high school.

“I plan to apply to several colleges,” Hines said. “But, as far as job-wise, I have not decided on all that yet. Hopefully I will soon so I can start setting some goals and achieving them.”