Book excerpt: On Fridays in the fall, a fog rises from Nancy Creek behind Marist School's Hughes Spalding Stadium and floats across the football field. The apparition, called "the Ghosts of Marist Football," represents the Great Spirit of Marist High School, a school Sports Illustrated ranked number fifteen in its list of top athletic programs in the country. The War Eagle tradition boasts more than six hundred victories, a trophy case filled with championships and thirty straight years of playoff appearances in Georgia high school football, all while playing much larger schools. Join author and Marist alumnus Franklin Cox for three years inside the Spartan-esque tradition and learn why no team dares allow itself to dishonor the glorious roll call of War Eagle history.