Every Friday night we sit down to do a show I wonder about all of the young men who are out on that field and think that something like this could happen...
Symptoms of head injuries can be subtle, however, even to the medical professionals trained to diagnose them. The danger of these injuries is that much greater when coaches, often the first ones to assess athletes for concussions, do not know how to spot them or what to do when they happen.
Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are so concerned by the potential danger of head injuries – about 300,000 athletes suffer from them each year – they have started an aggressive campaign to teach high school coaches their symptoms.
Although recent reports had Lawrenceburg High School's football Tigers dropping Class 4A EIAC rival East Central from the schedule as early as next season, it now looks like the longtime county rivalry will go one more year.
Lawrenceburg plans to jump from the Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference - with which its affiliation dates back to 1956 - to the small-school Mid-Indiana Football Conference in the near future. For all other sports, LHS will join the Ohio River Valley Conference.
The pivotal football issue, which started the gears in motion, will be case in point again Friday, as an outmanned LHS crew (4-2, 1-2 EIAC) faces another strong, deep EC team (5-1, 3-0) headed for yet another a conference title.
The Trojans whipped the Tigers 61-0 last year and haven't lost to Lawrenceburg in the last 10 meetings. The last win in the EC series for the Orange & Black dates back to the Kelcey Mucker era, a 27-0 win in 1992. The overall series, dating back to the 1973 season, stands 19-15 in favor of the Trojans.
The latest USA TODAY Super 25 high school football rankings are out:
2. St. Xavier, Cincinnati (4-0) Previous: 4. Result: Down 24-13, the Bombers scored 28 consecutive points en route to a 47-31 defeat of Trinity (Louisville), the top-ranked Class 6A team in Kentucky. Other games: Beat then-No. 5 DeMatha (Hyattsville, Md.) 28-7, Glenville (Cleveland) 27-12, and Winton Woods (Cincinnati) 35-7. Next: Friday vs. Bishop Chatard (Indianapolis).
12. Colerain, Cincinnati (4-0) Previous: 23. Result: Dominique Sherrer rushed 16 times for 155 yards and three touchdowns as the Cardinals defeated Mason 35-14 on Thursday. Also defeated Hoover (Ala.) 20-17, Wayne (Huber Heights) 19-7 and Clarke Road (London, Ontario) 77-8. Next: Friday vs. Middletown.
Two of the top teams in Fresno, Calif., went head-to-head last Friday, but even overtime couldn't determine a winner.
With a capacity crowd of 6,000 fans looking on, unbeatens Clovis West and Edison completed regulation tied 20-20. Each team scored 7 points on its first overtime possession, and Clovis West was in the midst of its second OT drive when suddenly, at 10:45 p.m. PT, the stadium's lights went out. And stayed out. Officials waited about 20 minutes before calling the game a tie.
The culprit? An automatic timer in the Fresno Unified School District's downtown office was set to kill the lights at 10:45 p.m., and kill the lights it did. "They had no timetable when someone possibly could turn them back on," Clovis West athletic director Karen Sowby told the Fresno Bee. "And, even then, it would have taken 30 minutes for the lights to come back on if they weren't completely cool. Plus, the kids were getting cold and they would have had to warm up. It was crazy."
The family of Spartanburgh (S.C.) High School quarterback Zycorrian Robinson say the player will not be allowed to compete this year and they are planning to file a police report against the team's longtime coach, Doc Davis, alleging assault. On Aug. 27, Davis announced he is resigning at the end of the season because of the incident. He has coached the Vikings for 18 years and led them to five state championships.
Who would of that here in the third week of September that we would still be dealing with this heat. With temperatures expected in the mid-90's on Saturday afternoon, CovCath and Highlands have moved their game originally scheduled for 1PM on Saturday in Park Hills to 10AM. Maybe it cool down to the 80's in October!
Here's the latest national high school football rankings from SI.com:
3. St. Xavier (Cincinnati) (3-0) - The Bombers continue to play well without star tailback Darius Ashley (ankle). Next on the nation's toughest schedule is Trinity (Louisville) at home.
14. Colerain (Cincinnati) (2-0) - The Cardinals beat Clarke Road (London, Ontario) by 69 points last Friday. This week?s opponent is Mason (Ohio)
15. Elder (Cincinnati) (2-0) - Following a close 21-16 win over Oak Hills (Ohio) last weekend, the Panthers host local challenger LaSalle Friday night.
Yeagle, who has been battling some health problems, will not be on the sidelines tonight when the Juggernauts play Lexington Christian. Offensive coordinator and former Lloyd head coach Roy Lucas Jr. will coach the team. But according to Erlanger/Elsmere superintendent Mike Sander, Yeagle still is the head coach and is still a teacher at Lloyd.
"He's just taking a couple weeks off," said Lloyd athletic director Chad Molley. "Roy's going to take over. But there's nothing beyond that.
"Yeagle, who has coached more state championship teams than anyone in Kentucky history, won eight titles in 14 seasons at Beechwood. This season is his first at Lloyd.
A fire investigator is on the scene of a blaze at Taft High School.A blaze destroyed football uniforms in the storage room just off the locker room around 2 this afternoon. No one was hurt and fire crews were able to extinguish the blaze quickly.
The building was evacuated but no one was hurt. Damage is estimated at $20,000.
But Coach Mike Martin says he's seen the damage, and the team has lost all their practice and game jerseys plus equipment. He's "devastated" but says his team will take the field tonight in a game against Withrow at Withrow, even if they have to wear shorts and t-shirts.
This afternoon, officials at Colerain High School volunteered to donate white jerseys to the Taft team.
Former Highlands' high school football star and current NY Giants' quarterback Jared Lorenzen is set to join us for a LIVE interview at 7:25 p.m. Friday night on Game Night on SuperTalk FM 96.5.
He led the Bluebirds to state title and was named Mr. Kentucky in high school football in 1998. That team went 15-0 and scored an amazing 801 points, the sixth-best total ever recorded by a high school team in the U.S. Lorenzen led the way by tossing 47 TDs and only 5 INTs
Elder visits neighboring rival Oak Hills on Friday. The Panthers have not lost to Oak Hills since 1986, a stretch of 21 years. We turn back the clock to 1992's battle to take a glimpse of some of that dominance:
Not only were the games of the Kirk Herbstreit Ohio vs. USA Challenge a success for local teams, but the attendance numbers here at Nippert Stadium were equally impressive.
-- 17,821 for Sunday’s games at UC; -- 32,868 for the four games at UC on Saturday.
It remains to be seen if there what the future will hold for the event, but Nate Noel of Intersport told us last week on Game Night that they were already working on the details. It is a tough event to pull off, but great fun to watch.
You're a high school football coach, and you're coasting to an easy victory over a non-conference opponent from out of state. It's 66-6 late in the game, you've already cleared your bench, and with just seconds remaining you insert a young man who had just transferred into your district for the game's final meaningless play.
Days later, you discover that your school had not received that player's official transcript and hadn't checked his academic status, and that he was ineligible to play in that game.
Do you report the violation, knowing it will mean a forfeit? Or do you let it slide, knowing full well that the infraction had zero impact on the outcome of the game?
Canton (Ohio) McKinley coach Brian Cross did the honorable thing, reporting the situation to school officials, who notified the Ohio High School Athletic Association, who ordered McKinley to forfeit the game to Detroit Pershing. And the Canton school district had no choice but to suspend Cross for one game.
A Canton schools official told the Canton Repository, "It's a positive Coach Cross brought it to our attention," but basically, rules are rules and coaches are role models. So the 66-6 win goes into the books as a defeat for McKinley, now 0-2 and playing its third game (versus unbeaten Lake High School on Friday) without its head coach.
What do you think? Too harsh? Or are academic eligibility rules to be followed to the letter of the law?
In this week's Trauth Dairy Northern Kentucky Game of the Week we will feature the Battle of the Colonels - Covington Catholic at Dixie Heights.
It has been sometime since I've been to one of the games, but as a player I enjoyed the rivalary very much so. The fact we would play against guys that were in our backyards and that we grew up playing with and against all entire lifes was something special.
It is such a rivalary that makes high school sports so special. There are so many great rivalaries around the city, but which one is the best?
The Colerain at Mason football game Sept. 13 will start at 7:30 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., according to FSN Ohio, which will broadcast the game live that day.
The pregame show will air at 7 p.m.
I am pretty stoked about high school coming to FSN Ohio this season.
FSN Ohio, along with Don Schumacher and Associates Inc., is bringing the finest high school football action home to the fans with a schedule of seven local, live, and exclusive games beginning this September. The Toyota High School Football Game of the Week on FSN Ohio schedule is as follows:
In this week's Trauth Dairy Northern Kentucky Game of the Week we will feature the Battle of the Colonels - Covington Catholic at Dixie Heights.