The high school football season opens this weekend in Western Pennsylvania.
It’s not quite the holy pursuit it used to be. Certain locales still provide throwback exceptions, like Aliquippa.
High school football is important.
It unites communities.
When five very different school districts did a court-ordered merger to form Woodland Hills in 1981, the football team brought the students and those neighborhoods together. The coach, George Novak, did more than coach. He worked miracles.
I reported on high school sports for the best part of two decades. A rewarding part of my career. The kids are real.
The first game I covered featured Dan Marino at quarterback for Central Catholic. Quite a first day on the job. Marino put together a late drive to beat North Allegheny.
Speaking of late drives, I saw North Allegheny (1990) and North Hills (1993) do that to win state championships. Eric Kasperowicz quarterbacked the latter. Now he’s back at North Hills to coach after having that job at Pine-Richland and Mars.
Getting back to Marino, I was on the sideline for that game. You could hear the velocity when Marino threw. The sizzle, the zip, air whistling through the laces.
The same went with Marc Bulger, also of Central Catholic and also an accomplished pro.
I saw Bill Fralic dominate the line of scrimmage for Penn Hills. Fralic could have started in college football when he was a sophomore in high school. He was already a muscular 6-foot-5, 270 pounds.
North Hills’ LaVar Arrington was a phenom. Arrington lined up to punt once. The ball got snapped over his head into the end zone. He retreated, picked it up and ran over 100 yards for a touchdown. He did the “LaVar leap” from his linebacker spot many times in scholastic ball before taking it to Penn State.
The best high school football player I saw was Washington running back Brian Davis. Unstoppable. Davis racked up so many yards so fast that the statisticians couldn’t keep up. Davis sadly flunked out at Pitt when doing that mostly blocked your path to the NFL.
Coaching legends like Upper St. Clair’s Jim Render and North Hills’ Jack McCurry.
Epic stadiums like The Pit at Aliquippa, the Wolvarena at Woodland Hills and Martorelli Stadium at North Hills.
The lights.
The bands.
The cheerleaders.
The mascots.
The student sections.
The atmosphere is electric.
So young and vibrant.
I still go. I went to Shaler, but I’m a North Hills fan because my late mother taught there. Big rivalry game Friday night at North Allegheny. It gets good right away.
This isn’t meant to be a complete recollection of my time covering high school football, let alone a ranking of teams, players, coaches, stadiums, etc. I can’t remember what happened last week, let alone 30 or 40 years ago.
But it was fun.
That, I remember for sure.
Nothing beats high school football in Western Pennsylvania.
That, I know for sure.