High School Football

[Eric]

I'm not a huge fan of high-school football, but if it floats your boat, enjoy it because it's here!

My alma mater is pretty bad....Maybe that's why I don't enjoy it...

[bama_girl]

thanks for the heads up about that show! i hadn't heard that yet. i'll havet o force myself to watch mtv but it might be worth it

i love high school football. that's where i fell in love with the sport after all. my high school went to the state playoffs every year that i was there and we won it one out of those four years. they've won it a couple times since then and i should go see them play more often but it's too far away.

there are some jamboree games in town this week and i plan on seeing them

[..fanatic]

Pulaski County High School in Virginia is a great environment for high school football. They routinely draw 10,000-13,000 with tailgating prior to the game and cool traditions. Players enter the field (which sits in a natural bowl) by walking two-by-two down the steps from the locker-room with all of the stadium lights off, the steps lit up and the band playing the Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fans are welcomed on the field to form a human alley that usually stretches out to the 30-yard line.

Joel Hicks was an amazing coach who retired three years ago as the winningnest coach in Virginia high school history. Amazingly, he only won 1 state title but they played in a half-dozen more and won 15 district titles. Non-district games were usually scheduled against schools from Tennessee, North Carolina and the Washington, DC area because no one in Virginia wanted to play them.

Now that he's left, some of that mystique has already disappeared and state teams - in bigger classifications - agree to play them now.

They went 8-2 with the new coach his first year and missed the playoffs. Went 5-5 and made the playoffs last year (weird) but lost in the first round.

Their main rival is Salem and that game draws 18,000-22,000 people every year it's played. The winner usually wins the district and goes deep into the playoffs.

Top players to come from there are Gary Clark, former wide receiver of the Washington Redskins, and Shayne Graham, current kicker of Cincinnati. At one point, they had furnished Virginia Tech four field goal kickers over like a 12-year period.

[..fanatic]

I should have added that Rockledge High School (where I live in Florida) has been fun to go watch games, too. They won back-to-back state titles in 2002 and 2003. But the crowds aren't very large (3,000 is a rarity) and the crowd mostly sits on its hands.

[Spence]

Highschool football is huge in Ohio. From the small south eastern Ohio teams to the D-1 big time schools. I go and see several highschool teams play during the season. I think it is fun to watch these kids go from freshman in highschool, through their college years and sometimes into the NFL.

We have highschool fields that range from seating a couple thousand all the way up to 30,000 people.

[Spence]

Doesn't Hoovers coach pull down $95,000 for coaching football?

[bama_girl]

it was a pretty good show. did a good job showing the craziness of it all. i coulda done without the zack and pam saga...or whatever thier names were

if they really want a good show, they ought to go to one of the outa the way, redneck schools where football is the only thing goin on in town