King’s Fork football players, longtime teammates and good friends Charles Clark and Davon Grayson will be headed different ways this fall after having signed to play football for and attend separate Division I colleges. Clark will head west to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and Grayson will head south to East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.

As student-athletes, the two will likely be very busy and may only have time for the occasional phone call to keep in touch, but this does not mean they will not have time to hang out in person during the school year. Their paths will cross in epic fashion on Sept. 14, when the Virginia Tech Hokies travel to play the East Carolina Pirates.

Both have already given it some thought.

“I’ll be seeing him again,” Clark said of Grayson. “I’ve never played against him, but I went against him many times in practice. We both get the best of each other, so I can already feel it’s going to be real heated between me and him, because I know how me and him get when we go against each other. It’s big brother/little brother. And shoot, one day he feels like the big brother, one day I feel like the big brother, so neither one of us is going to back down from each other.”

“Aw, yeah!” Grayson said with a big smile. “Me and Charles Clark. We battled every day since ninth grade ‘til our senior year. It’s going to be a ball. I have so much respect for him. From standing off the field, you can’t see that I talk trash; the players on the field know I love it. So, me and Chuck, we’re going to definitely compete to the highest. That might be my best game, that might be his best game. We’re so excited. That’s my family. I’m always at his house, he’s always at mine. We’ll probably call each other about a week before the game, but I know the week of there’s going to be a lot of trash talking.”

King’s Fork linebacker T.C. Livingston completed the trio of signings on National Signing Day, along with Clark and Grayson when he committed to Norfolk State University.

“And this is just the beginning of it, these three today,” Bulldogs head coach Joe Jones said on Wednesday.

In addition to three Division I recruits, King’s Fork also likely has several Division II and III players who also contributed to the best season in school history.

“We hope to have four or five more guys make commitments somewhere within the next month or so, and we’ll have another one of these ceremonies,” Jones said.

The coach also spoke to what the abundance of talent from this 2012-13 team and the subsequent signings mean for the city of Suffolk.

“I think it’s great, not only for the school and for their families and for our football program, but, I think, just for Suffolk, so people can see, hey, Suffolk’s putting out some pretty good football talent,” he said.