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Fall in love again: soaking up a major high school football rivalry—with the pep rallies, the bright lights, the civic pride—can be a chill-inducing experience, even for a dispassionate sportswriter

Sporting News, The, Sept 23, 2005 by Steve Greenberg

The cognoscenti among you will remember the 1986 film Wildcats, a tour de force starring Goldie Hawn as a high school football coach and featuring strapping young studs Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes as two of her best players. The Wildcats played on a dusty, unkempt field in a rundown, desolate stadium behind which stood what appeared to be a maximum-security prison. I played on that field. That prison was my high school, Lane Tech in Chicago. I was a student there when the movie was shot.

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Since then, I've been to scores of football games, virtually all of them college or pro. So last week, when I traveled to Tulsa, Okla., for the annual Backyard Bowl between Jenks and Union, the best programs in that state, I knew I was going to experience high school football on its grandest scale for the first time. Something out of Friday Night Lights, I imagined. What I didn't know--what would have seemed preposterous--is that I was going to stumble upon something even better. I was going to see the most entertaining football game of my life.

The decision

Not a high school sportsnik, I nevertheless had many of the same towns immediately come to mind for this journey as you would. Odessa, Texas, rendered indelible by Buzz Bissinger. Massillon, Ohio. Valdosta, Ga. Concord, Calif. So I asked around.

Why did I eventually choose Jenks vs. Union? Following tips from friends and colleagues, I learned of a coach in Jenks, Allan Trimble, who has won seven state championships in his nine years at the school. And of a coach in Tulsa, Bill Blankenship, whose Union program has beaten Jenks five times since 1997, including an upset of the No. 1-ranked Trojans in the 2004 Class 6A title game. (Union also won the title in 2002.)

But there is so much more ...

* The winner of three of their past four state title meetings had lost the teams' regular-season game. In 2003, Jenks got revenge in the state semis for a 37-0 regular-season loss to Union.

* Though only a few miles separate the schools, they are in stark contrast--Union with its stunningly big-time, multimillion-dollar facilities (the 2004 Mid-Continent Conference basketball Tournament with an NCAA bid on the line was held in the Redskins' 5,600-seat arena), Jenks with the sort of rustic and bland campus you might find anywhere.

* Best of all, the annual Backyard Bowl is played under the lights at the University of Tulsa's Skelly Stadium and routinely outdraws Golden Hurricane games. There have been more than 30,000 fans for Jenks-Union on several occasions, with a record of 40,035.

There probably isn't any such thing as the best high school football rivalry in America, but there can't be one any better than this.

The buildup

Traveling to a new place tends to suck the cynicism right out of a man.

On the plane ride to Tulsa, I met a Jenks woman who took one look at me and somehow knew exactly where I was headed. "I never miss a Union game," she declared. "My son's coming in from college for it. You've never seen anything like it."

I visited both high schools. where I saw pep rallies that gave me chills. I spoke with coaches. principals, teachers, parents. players and other students, and they gave me chills. I read the newspaper, listened to the radio, ate breakfast with the locals, chatted at the bar ... and before I knew it, long gone was the dispassionate, too-cool-to-care veneer of the sportswriter. The Backyard Bowl was near. I cared.

The game

But I didn't care who would win. Well, that's a lie. I alternately rooted for Jenks and Union, Union and Jenks--not by design but because I couldn't help myself. I pulled for the Jenks quarterbacks, who I'd heard for days weren't good enough to get the job done. For the running back who had started at Union, transferred to Jenks and then gone back to Union again, drawing scorn (he's just a kid!). For Blankenship, a gentle giant cut from rock who had moved me with stories of coaching his sons. For Trimble, a gentle giant cut from something much softer who had surprised me with his humility, humor and hospitality.

I walked from one side of the field to the other and back again, over and over, and rooted like a kid.

In the end, it was the game that moved me most. Second-ranked Jenks, for once a significant underdog, raced ahead 14-0, but Union took a 15-14 lead after two long scoring passes just before the half. There was a 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown as top-ranked Union took a 30-20 lead into the fourth quarter. It was 37-20 with 6 minutes to go--and then all hell broke loose.

In 3 minutes. Jenks scored 21 straight points to retake the lead. One end of Skelly Stadium rocked. But Union converted on fourth-and-15, then hit a long pass and then a short one--44-41 Redskins, with 34 seconds on the clock. Skelly's other side shook. What happened next, I still can't believe. A fair catch on the kickoff at the 26. A pass to the 36. At last, with 18 seconds before it was all over, a pass to the 40 ... to the 30 ... the 20 ... the 10 ... oh, my God, they scored again. That was it--Jenks 48, Union 44.

Fall in love again: soaking up a major high school football rivalry—with the pep rallies, the bright lights, the civic pride—can be a chill-inducing experience, even for a dispassionate sportswriter

Sporting News, The, Sept 23, 2005 by Steve Greenberg

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