Blue Ridge and Show Low once again

One of the more passionate high school football rivalries in the Arizona will be on display today in the 3A conference state title game at Northern Arizona University’s Walkup Skydome.  In a replay of last year’s championship game, Lakeside Blue Ridge will take on Show Low at 5 p.m.  Blue Ridge won last year’s game 41-21 and also defeated Show Low a month ago, 36-18.  Between them, the two schools have won 11 out of the last 16 3A state football championships.

If you cannot make it to Flagstaff, you can watch the game live on the AIA’s website.   You can also watch the 1 p.m. 2A conference championship game between Northwest Christian and Yuma Catholic here.

Regulating common sense

There are regulations for everything these days, so I guess I should have not been surprised. But still, it is sad to discover that the Arizona Interscholastic Association has issued five pages of guidelines on how cheerleaders should conduct themselves at the high school state championship football games. That’s right, when Chaparral plays Marcos de Niza this Friday night at ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium and Hamilton plays Mesa the following day at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, the pom and cheer squads for those four schools will have to abide by the AIA’s guidelines for how they should conduct themselves.

The guidelines are not onerous and their purpose is laudable. The AIA says that their purpose is “to re-emphasize the important role spiritlines play in promoting school spirit, appropriate behavior, and good sportsmanship during the regular season and at State Tournament games.”

Fine, but are five pages of regulations really necessary? Do you really need to tell high school girls and their coaches, “If you arrive in private vehicles, you are responsible for finding a parking space?” Plus, for some reason, the AIA prohibits glitter “on any part of the body (including hair) or uniforms.” Does the AIA have glitter police at the state championship games?

The AIA’s “Spritline Conduct Guide – Football Game Conduct” informs the cheerleaders that “[y]our squad also plays an important role in discouraging crowds from yelling or cheering…while an opponent is shooting free throws.” Have the rules of high school football changed recently? Do teams now shoot free throws when their opponents jump offsides? Believe me, if that happens this Friday and Saturday there will be a lot yelling in the crowd and I doubt that cheerleaders will be able to discourage it.

Finally, the AIA guidelines reflect some naivete. While good sportsmanship must always be encouraged, state championship games are emotional events and the officials sometimes make unpopular, and even incorrect, calls. When that happens, some people will boo the officials. It has been, and always will be, part of the game.

So what do the AIA guidelines instruct cheerleaders to do when a crowd starts booing? This is what it says: “Squads should divert the crowd’s attention by starting a popular cheer should booing or other unsportsmanlike conduct develop.”

I have never seen cheerleaders divert the crowd’s attention from booing “by starting a popular cheer” or by doing anything else and I doubt anyone else has either. Who writes these things?

My guess is that the four pom and cheer squads will do just fine exercising their own judgment at the upcoming 5A state championship football games. As for the person who wrote the AIA’s “Spiritline Conduct Guide,” I am sure that he or she has a future drafting rules and regulations for some government agency. — Dan Barr

Herding cats

“They look like a herd of cats.”

That’s what I thought as I ran around the track at Chaparral High School this morning while the freshman football team was practicing. Thirteen-year-old boys have notoriously short attention spans, and that is on full display at freshman football practices.

Many of boys still have baby fat on their faces, arms and legs — and almost all of them will grow several more inches and put on 20 to 40 pounds during the next two or three years. As the boys scrimmaged, the coaches did all the things that football coaches do to focus the attention of their players. They yelled, cajoled, encouraged and yelled some more.

As I ran around the track, I had two flashbacks. One was to 10 years ago, when my older son Andy and about 60 other boys were going through their first days of freshman football practice. They, too, wandered around like cats while the coaches strained to focus their attention on football and operating as a cohesive unit.

I then thought of a comment that a reporter friend made to me three years later, in December 2002. Andy and his teammates were seniors and the baby fat was long gone. They had just upset the defending state champions in the state semifinal football game in Tucson. They scored the winning points after a lengthy drive that ate up much of the clock in the fourth quarter.

“That drive began more than three years ago,” my friend said. He was referring to the thousands of hours of work the boys had put in together on the practice field and in the weight room since their freshman year. He was also referring to the fact that, during their lengthy game-winning drive, Chaparral had returned to plays from their freshman playbook.

With nerves, emotions and crowd noise running high, the coaches called the plays these kids had run hundreds of times during practice and games. These plays, which were now hardwired into Andy and his teammates, were the same ones they had stumbled through at the beginning of their freshman year. But they no longer looked like a herd of cats. They had become a team — and a week later they would win the state championship.

As I ran around the track, one of the freshman coaches starting yelling at a player for not paying attention to something. The coach got in the player’s face and told him to get off the field and stand on the sideline. I ran a few more laps around the track, and as I finished I walked past and caught the eye of the boy on the sideline, who was still a little chastened.

“Hi, Coach…I mean, Sir, how are you?” the boy said.

I was tempted to share what I been thinking about as I ran around the track, but thought better of it for two reasons. One, I didn’t want the coach to yell at him again for not paying attention. Two, there are just some things you have to find out for yourself. Adults often want to tell kids about the “big picture,” and I am often guilty of that myself.

Instead, I told him that both of my sons and many of their friends had played football at Chaparral and that it had been a great experience for them.

“When do you play your first game?” I asked.

The boy’s face brightened. “This Wednesday!”

I was tempted to expound on the fact that his first freshman game was the first step in a long journey toward becoming part of a real team, but feared I’d sound like a pompous blowhard.

Instead, I told him the only thing that most high school athletes want to hear, from their friends, family, teachers — or just some guy running around the track.

“I’ll come watch the game.”

SEPT 3 UPDATE:
Saw a spirited, if predictably sloppy, first game of the freshman football season Wednesday night between Boulder Creek and Chaparral. Boulder Creek won 27-26 after both teams scored touchdowns in the last 100 seconds of the game. There were some exceptional plays and lots of what let’s call “learning experiences” or “teaching moments” by both teams.

I watched the game with my friend, Dr. Steven Pitt, one of the country’s leading forensic psychiatrists. Steve’s son, Beau, plays left tackle for Chaparral, and Steve was trying to master the art of watching his son through binoculars while watching the rest of the players and talking with me and others as well.

From what I saw last night, Beau, who is already 6 feet and 170 pounds, has a far greater upside as an offensive lineman over the next four seasons than his dad has in manipulating binoculars. I look forward to watching the two Pitts develop their respective football skills. — Dan Barr