By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
Fluvanna football’s loss is the East Carolina Pirates’ gain. On Dec.19, Fluco offensive lineman Walter Stribling signed to play his collegiate football at East Carolina University, which is located in Greenville, NC. At the signing ceremony, Stribling was surrounded by family. His mother and father, Don and Lori Stribliing, were at his side; his younger sister and brother, Eva and Eli, were behind him and his grandparents Don and Sandra Stribling were also on hand. Stribling’s father is the executive director of human resources, operations and student services, for the Fluvanna County school system.
Stribling won a number of honors during his football career at Fluvanna. He was All-Jefferson District, All Region 3C and All-Central Virginia at offensive tackle. He also participated in track and field, throwing shot and discus and he played a couple of seasons of baskeball for the Flucos.
Stribliing is a truly big offensive lineman. One program listed him as 6-8 and 310. Many lineman that size are carrying some obvious extra weight, but not Stribling. He looks trim and fit and big. Often, casual observers of football never see what the offensive line is doing. You only know that if running backs are gaining 5 or 6 or 8 yards at a time, the offensive line is clearly doing its job. The Flucos had some good running backs the past two years, but Stribling’s blocking clearly helped them a lot. It was not uncommon to see him fending off two defenders at a time.
Although he also played some defensive line in his senior year, Stribling confirmed after the signing that he will be playing offensive line for the Pirates. He also noted that he will be enrolling early at ECU. He will start classes there in January. This one semester jump on the freshman year is becoming more common for football athletes, who have serious time commitments to their sport in the first semester of their college careers.
The East Carolina Pirates play in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) which an up and coming football conference that is knocking on the door of the “power five” football conferences. This year the conference boasted some of the top teams in the country in football, including Memphis, Cincinatti, Navy and SMU. Hopefully, Stribling will help ECU burst into the upper echelons of the conference. The Pirates were only 4-8 this year.
