Now that we are into November and the High School Football playoffs, all games will be held at neutral fields. That's ashame, I think home field advantage would be an interesting other aspect of the playoffs especially in District 10. There are a lot of great high school football venues around the area, but General McLane has to be the best, great fans, great atmosphere, even tailgaters before the game !!! Let me thank Athletic Director Ken Walker, Head Coach Jim Wells and the entire McLane School District for their hospitality at the Prep-McLane game on October 19th. We taped a "live" broadcast of the game to show the following day and the cooperation we got was simply outstanding. It just makes our job so much easier and so much fun too. Once again, thanks to McLane and good luck in the playoffs.

So much of high school football is great, you hate to hear about anything bad but it does happen. At the Central Tech football game at Slippery Rock, fans had to be removed from behind the Falcons bench for verbal insults at the team, some had racial overtones. According to Central Tech, all the appropriate action was taken by Slippery Rock, the fans were removed and could face criminal charges. They also profusely apologized to the Central Tech team and coaching staff. A similiar incident happened to the Cathedral Prep freshman team, who actually were pulled off the field by the head coach with six seconds left in the game when nothing was being done about it. The game was being played at Ringgold High School and is still under investigation. Once again, it's a few morons who ruin it for the majority. Let's hope we don't hear about any more of these type of incidents in the future.

Mid-November and the snow reminds us that the winter sports seasons are just about ready to start. Just in time to get inside to cover and watch the local sports teams which is ok by me although the weather this fall during the football season has been one of the best in years.
A few leftover items from the football season. It certainly was disturbing to see what happened at the end of the East-Oil City game on November 3rd with a big fight between some players. I've always respected just how tough of a job it is to be a head coach at the high school level. The kids are so different as they grow through their teen years. Some more mature than others, many from different family backgrounds and at their young and impressionable age, it's gotta be tough to control an entire group without some problems. Many coaches do it and have done it.
Some blamed the officials for losing control of the game and that might be true to a certain extent but what the officials can do is limited. They can start tossing kids out of the game at the first sign of trouble but they would be criticized for that. Sometime officials can't win. Let's hope the bottom line of this mess was that others learned from it before it happens again at all levels of high school sports. As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, bad fan behavior, verbal abuse and fights just don't have a place in high school sports. Let's hope it doesn't get to the point where the Erie City schools will have to start playing games in the afternoon to avoid problems both on and off the field.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but what's the big deal about knowing what Joe Paterno's is being paid. Perhaps from a curiosity standpoint, but go to court over it...c'mon. He's probably paid millions of dollars a year and the critics will say "why pay that much for someone to coach a football team ???" For those who believe that way, they don't have a clue what it's all about. Paterno, and any other coach of a major college football teamfor that matter, does more than just coach football, he runs a business and raises funds. His responsibility is to recruit good athletes, put together a good team and that team must be good enough to fill a 110-thousand seat stadium seven or eight times a year, get on national TV, get into a bowl game and all of that pays out millions of dollars to the school. And it doesn't all go back into athletics, it built a library and funded other educational programs. So, perhaps that's why I don't care what they pay Joe Paterno since he is the number one fundraiser at Penn State who just happens to be the head football coach.