Dispatch
Players want to shine at ’Shoe
Friday, August 25, 2006
Mike Wagner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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Massillon and Canton might be America’s mecca for football, but most players in Ohio’s most-successful highschool programs would rather compete elsewhere for a state championship.
In an unprecedented survey by The Dispatch, more than half of 1,827 players from 30 of the state’s high-school football powers said they would prefer Ohio Stadium as host.
None of the other marquee football stadiums across the state came close.
"When you think of Ohio, you think of Ohio State. And when you think of Ohio State, you think of that stadium," said Zach Steve, a senior tackle for Columbus Brookhaven. "Just about anyone who plays high-school football here dreams of playing in the Horse- shoe, and that’s where the championships should be."
Among the surveyed players, Ohio Stadium received 52 percent of the votes.
Coming in a distant second was Cleveland Browns Stadium with 13 percent, followed by Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati with 12 percent. Paul Brown Tiger Stadium in Massillon and Fawcett Stadium in Canton, the current hosts of the six championship games, each received 11 percent.
When selecting sites for the championship games, officials for the Ohio High School Athletic Association say their ultimate goal is to give players an experience they will remember for a lifetime. But the players don’t get a say in the process.
The Dispatch decided to get their opinions heading into the season, which opens tonight. Using a short survey — not a scientific poll of all high schools — the newspaper selected 30 high-school football programs that routinely qualify for the state playoffs, competed in the championship games last year or played in one or more championship games in the past decade.
To represent large and small communities, the paper picked schools from each of Ohio’s six divisions, which are based on enrollment. The public and parochial schools represent every region of the state.
Ohio Stadium was not part of Columbus’ latest bid to host the games, but university officials say they will pursue them in the future.
OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross said any Columbus bid that includes Ohio Stadium likely would intensify the competition for the games.
"It would be tremendous for Columbus to have that facility in their bid," Ross said. "But we would give all bids for those games the same hard look."
Ohio Stadium was a popular pick among players even at schools that would be expected to support their hometown stadium. At Cincinnati Colerain, more than 65 percent picked Ohio Stadium. In Massillon, 32 players voted to move the games to Columbus, just eight fewer votes than their home field received.
Coaches surveyed are more split over the issue than their players.
"The Massillon/Canton area is the capital of high-school football in America," said coach Reno Saccoccia, of Steubenville. "Nothing beats a championship game in Massillon. Keep the games there."
Other coaches side with the majority of the players.
"How many people walking the earth can say they played football in Ohio Stadium?" said coach Dan Reardon, of Youngstown Ursuline. "If they can bring those games back to Ohio State, they should do it for the kids."
[email protected]
Dispatch
Friday, August 25, 2006
Dispatch
A title, and its pursuit, burnish lasting memories
Friday, August 25, 2006
Mike Wagner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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</td></tr> <tr><td class="credit" width="200"> KYLE ROBERTSON </td></tr> <tr><td class="cutline" width="200">Massillon Paul Brown Tiger Stadium, with an artificial surface, modern press box and plenty of parking, will be the site of three high-school state championship games each year to 2009. </td></tr> </tbody></table> </td></tr> </tbody> </table>
The thought of playing for a state high-school football championship makes that last sprint a little easier for the boys in pads. It fills the daydreams of coaches stuck in a film room watching past games. It can make a community long for fall.
Only a few teams get there. But for those that make it, and even those that come close, there are stories that never go away — stories that embody the passion of the game. Here is a sampling:
Snowflakes and fireworks
The coaches wipe the icy windshield all the way to Massillon as snow swirls harder with each passing mile.
The sweat socks stretched over the coaches’ arms need to be wrung out after the rusty chartered bus carrying the 2003 Avon Lake football team pulls into the stadium parking lot.
On the victory ride back to the Cleveland suburb, with the weather even worse, one of the buses catches fire and extinguishes any chance to make it back in time for the school rally. Smoke billows from the cabin, and players evacuate to the dark highway.
At 2 a.m. the weary team pulls into the school parking lot. There, snowflakes illuminate more than 3,000 fans.
Coach Dave Dlugosz still savors the scene. "They started shooting off fireworks in the snowstorm."
Iron gates and dreams
They could only peer through the iron-gated fence for a glimpse of the sun-baked green turf and yellow goal posts. Their first game was weeks away, but their coach took them to Massillon to dream.
On this summer day, the seniors on the Brookville football team vow to lead their teammates back to this stadium to play for a state championship.
Later that fall, in the 2000 regional finals, the team from west of Dayton is close to taking that bus back to Massillon. But one trick play leaves them at the same place they stood months before — at a steel black fence, a wish away.
"It’s been six years and I still think about that play," said coach Marc Gibson, who has since moved on to another school.
"My kids, our fans, our community … man we wanted to play in one of those championship games."
A broken leg and a promise
His leg snaps just before he crashes to the frozen field.
The 2005 championship game in Massillon is still in doubt and barely half over for undefeated Steubenville. Now, its captain, Jeremy Presley, is in an ambulance.
The grizzled coach kisses his middle linebacker on the forehead and makes a promise that his team helps him keep. The bus takes a detour on the victory ride home. "We can’t leave here without Jeremy," one player yells.
The two buses pull into the hospital and wait for the broken leg to be placed in a splint. Hours later, Jeremy and his football brothers are welcomed by what seems like all of Steubenville.
"We wouldn’t leave Jeremy," coach Reno Saccoccia says, "and our fans didn’t leave us."
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Dispatch
Friday, August 25, 2006
Graphic of locations and revenue.
Dispatch
FIGHTING FOR THE FINALS
OSU wants title games in high-school football played in Horseshoe, but they won’t come easily
Friday, August 25, 2006
Mike Wagner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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</td></tr> <tr><td class="credit" width="200"> KYLE ROBERTSON </td></tr> <tr><td class="cutline" width="200">ABOVE: Football coach Kerry Coombs says the travel to northeastern Ohio for the championship games is a disadvantage for his Cincinnati Colerain squad and other teams from the southern part of the state. Despite the perceived disadvantage, Colerain won the Division I title in 2004. </td></tr> <tr><td align="center">
</td></tr> <tr><td class="credit" width="200"> JAMES D . D </td></tr> <tr><td class="cutline" width="200">RIGHT: Christ Thigpen, a junior at Columbus Brookhaven, drills with his teammates during August practices, hoping for a chance to win a state championship, like the Bearcats did in 2004 in Massillon. Columbus officials are hoping future title games can be returned to Columbus. </td></tr> <tr><td align="center">
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Helmeted heads slumping over maize and blue uniforms. A scowl burning into the wrinkled face of the defeated coach. Frenzied Ohio State fans celebrating another win over their rival.
Beating Michigan, or any other team, is no longer the last image Jim Tressel wants to see in Ohio Stadium at the end of the regular football season.
The Buckeyes coach covets for Columbus what Canton and Massillon already own — the six Ohio high-school football championship games.
With up to $5 million in annual visitor spending at stake, Columbus, Cincinnati and other cities already are plotting to take the games away from northeastern Ohio, three years before the contract can be reopened for bidding.
Tressel and OSU Athletics Director Gene Smith have ended speculation about whether they would like the games in Ohio Stadium, where they were held during most of the 1980s.
"Without question, we want those games here in our stadium," Tressel said. "There is no stadium in this state, or maybe the country, like Ohio Stadium. It would be such a special experience in a special environment for the kids."
The quest to play in one of the championship games began on the steamy practice fields of August. It will end in early December for a dozen of more than 700 Ohio schools eligible for the tournament.
It might be easier for Tressel to win another national title than to help bring the highschool championship games back to Columbus.
Cincinnati officials want the games and are using power brokers such as Bengals owner Mike Brown to push their bid. Toledo would like the games. Cleveland officials say they will explore a potential bid.
The front-runner for future contracts remains Stark County, home to Massillon and Canton, which have hosted some or all of the championship games for the past 16 years.
That streak will continue through at least 2009. This spring, the Ohio High School Athletic Association, which sponsors and selects the site of the event, again awarded the contract to Canton and Massillon, where footballs still are placed in hospital cribs of newborn boys.
"In Columbus, the Buckeyes are the main attraction; in Cleveland and Cincinnati, the professional football teams take center stage; but in Massillon and Canton, Friday nights in the fall are what people live for," said Chris Spielman, a legendary football player at Massillon Washington High School and Ohio State. "I say leave the games there. It’s best to have the games where high-school football is the main priority."
The decision to keep the games in northeastern Ohio wasn’t popular with those across the state who think the event should have a central location, rotate among cities each year or be played in their own backyard.
"There is no way you can put those games in a corner of the state and say there isn’t an advantage for the teams up north," said Kerry Coombs, head coach of Cincinnati Colerain. "It’s a competitive advantage for teams on the field and an inconvenience for fans and schools in the southern part of Ohio."
Complaints about the long drive to Massillon or Canton have echoed for years at the opposite end of the state.
"We could be in North Carolina before we could play in Canton," said Terry Parker, a coach at Ironton. It’s about 260 miles from Ironton to Canton or Husk, N.C. "That travel just wears on you."
The high-school football playoffs typically begin around the state on the first weekend in November and conclude with the championship games the first weekend in December. A total of 192 teams qualify for the playoffs. After five rounds of games, a champion is crowned in each of six divisions.
Combined attendance for the six games typically is about 60,000.
The football playoffs, including the championship games, generated nearly $5 million last year for the OHSAA, nearly a third of its $16 million gross revenue.
"Not many states are blessed enough to have this many cities that have so much interest and ability to host these games," OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross said. "This says so much about the passion for high-school football in Ohio."
The fight for the games
The bronze statue of Paul Brown stands in front of Massillon’s cathedral, guarding the stadium’s heritage in the same way the coach’s teams would protect a fourth-quarter lead.
Brown’s championships were spread around the state, but his legacy is greatest in northeastern Ohio.
No one is more aware of that than his son Mike, the Cincinnati Bengals owner, who wants to move the high-school football championships to the Queen City, where another stadium bears his father’s name.
"I have great pride that my father was involved in making Massillon the football town it is, but Cincinnati also has strong high-school teams and tradition," Brown said. "We would love to have those games down here, and we made a strong bid to get them here."
Cincinnati’s elaborate bid to host all six games in the Bengals’ Paul Brown Stadium included a passionate speech by Brown to the OHSAA’s ninemember site-selection committee. City officials showcased the city and stadium for more than four hours.
Columbus officials made a similar presentation. Their plan was to play four games in Columbus Crew Stadium, home to the professional soccer team, and two games at Dublin Coffman High School.
But it wasn’t enough to overcome the Canton/Massillon bid.
OHSAA officials say the Canton/Massillon setting is almost perfect in every way. Support for high-school football is as rabid there as anywhere in the country. The high-school stadiums, which seat 22,360 and 16,392, provide an intimate setting where players are soaked in crowd noise.
Artificial surfaces in both stadiums protect against the nasty winter weather that often plagues the games. The fields are only 10 miles apart. They have plenty of parking, good lighting and modern press boxes for the media.
"There is a mystique, history and passion for this event that can’t be put on paper as a bid," Ross said. "We had three really strong bids, but for those two communities, this event takes center stage."
The cost of hosting the games also favors Canton and Massillon. Because of lower stadium operating expenses and no stadium rental fees, the Stark County bid will cost OHSAA $62,244. That would have been $125,000 in Cincinnati and $87,390 in Columbus.
Hotels and restaurants also are cheaper for visitors to Stark County. "Money is not the deciding factor, but it is something we look at," Ross said.
Canton officials estimate the high-school games generate up to $3 million for the local economy. Columbus and Cincinnati officials estimate visitor spending would have been about $5 million.
"It would be devastating on a lot of fronts if we lost the games, and money is a part of that," said Jeffrey John, who organizes Stark County’s bid. "We know the bidding process will intensify, and we know Columbus, with Ohio State, will be our main competition."
Return to the Horseshoe ?
Since Ohio Stadium switched from artificial turf to natural grass in 1990, OSU officials have shown little interest or given mixed signals to the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, which submits the city’s bid.
Now there is no more guessing.
"We want the games here, period," OSU’s Smith said. "We are going to work hard to bring those games here."
Smith and Tressel say holding high-school championships for any sport in Columbus helps attract potential students and Ohio’s top high-school athletic talent to their university.
"It certainly wouldn’t hurt our program’s recruiting," Tressel said. "Any time you give those young student-athletes the chance to experience what we have at Ohio State is going to help."
Tressel’s wish would be to hold all six championship games on campus, with three games each being played in Ohio Stadium and Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, which normally hosts track and field, soccer and lacrosse.
It would be a tight fit, but a football field could be lined within the Jesse Owens stadium to seat up to 14,000.
Two potential hurdles stand in Ohio Stadium’s way — its natural grass and cavernous size.
"All it would take is one badweather game on that grass field and the state championships would be ruined for everyone," said Tom Stacy, football coach of Massillon Washington. "Everyone loves the Buckeyes, but we shouldn’t play on grass, and the games would just get lost in a stadium that size."
Ohio Stadium has hosted 37 championship games, the last in 1989.
Bill Franks, the football coach at Newark Catholic, played in three of those games in the mid-1980s. He said about 5,000 fans occupied a stadium that held about 90,000 at the time, but crowd size didn’t detract from the atmosphere.
"It was electric in there, and it felt like the fans were right there," Franks said. "Massillon and Canton have great stadiums, but no other stadium has the same special feel as Ohio Stadium."
To help offset the stadium’s size, Smith thinks attendance for the games could be increased with aggressive marketing.
As for the grass, the field’s keepers say it would remain a safe playing surface for three high-school games even under brutal winter conditions.
"Even under the worst-case scenario with snow and rain, and the Michigan game being played at home, the field would hold up fine," said Brian Gimbel, grounds superintendent for Ohio State athletics. "It might look a little beat-up, but it would be stable for the players."
Ohio State revamped its playing surface in 2003 by installing an artificial-turf mat just below the rye-grass field. That grass now grows through the field’s sand underbelly and snarls into the artificial mat for more stability.
Tressel’s desire to bring the games back to the state capital is so high that he asked Gimbel about potentially changing Ohio Stadium’s surface to artificial turf. Ohio Stadium had artificial turf from 1971 to 1989.
"I told the coach we didn’t need to do that to get the highschool games and he said, ‘OK,’ " Gimbel said.
Part of their soul
Despite living virtually next door to one another, the only thing that seems to unify orange-wearing Massillon Washington Tiger fans and red-clad Canton McKinley Bulldog fans is hosting the high-school championship games.
Proof of that came a few years ago when the green turf at Canton’s Fawcett Stadium was buried under a half-foot of snow and the start of a championship game wasn’t far away. The Canton maintenance crew needed help. A few minutes later, police cruisers escorted two broomsweeping tractors from Massillon to help clear the field.
"Canton and Massillon are two towns that don’t like each other a whole lot," said Brian Cross, the Canton McKinley football coach. "But when it comes to these games, we work together, because we know how much they mean to our communities."
Every football season for Massillon and McKinley is measured by whether one can beat the other. More than a few punches have been thrown during a football rivalry that is more than a century old and considered by many the best high-school grudge match in the country.
The two schools have combined for 32 state championships and nearly 1,500 wins. They each rank in the top 10 nationally for all-time highschool victories.
But the thought of losing the championship games brings anxious glares from Massillon residents and business owners who consider the games their own.
Canton and Massillon have plenty of powerful boosters who help support the championship games with their time and checkbooks. Last year, a group of Massillon boosters raised $600,000 in less than four months for a new stadium scoreboard. "A big reason we did it was to keep those championship games here," said Bill Dorman, former president of the Massillon Tiger Football Booster Club.
Massillon also has raised $300,000 for new artificial turf to be installed for the 2007 season.
Money isn’t a motivating factor for the players, who love their stadium but dream of playing for the championship in Ohio Stadium, Cleveland Browns Stadium and other marquee venues.
"I think they should rotate the games around every year from here in Massillon to Canton and Columbus and Cincinnati to give everyone a chance to have the games," said Andrew Dailey, a senior linebacker for Massillon. "It doesn’t matter where they play the games for us because Massillon fans will go anywhere."
But other players, even those outside Massillon, say the games should stay in northeastern Ohio.
"Making it to Massillon is what every football player in this state has dreamed of for a long time," said Dane Sanzenbacher, a senior wide receiver for Toledo Central Catholic who has committed to play for Ohio State. "The games should stay there."
Alan Parnacott, owner of Massillon’s Coffee Cup restaurant, said both communities would be stripped of part of their identity if the games were played elsewhere.
"It would take a piece of this area’s soul if we ever lost those games," he said. "They belong up here. And I know everyone in Massillon and Canton will fight to keep them."
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Players want to shine at ’Shoe
Friday, August 25, 2006
Mike Wagner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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Massillon and Canton might be America’s mecca for football, but most players in Ohio’s most-successful highschool programs would rather compete elsewhere for a state championship.
In an unprecedented survey by The Dispatch, more than half of 1,827 players from 30 of the state’s high-school football powers said they would prefer Ohio Stadium as host.
None of the other marquee football stadiums across the state came close.
"When you think of Ohio, you think of Ohio State. And when you think of Ohio State, you think of that stadium," said Zach Steve, a senior tackle for Columbus Brookhaven. "Just about anyone who plays high-school football here dreams of playing in the Horse- shoe, and that’s where the championships should be."
Among the surveyed players, Ohio Stadium received 52 percent of the votes.
Coming in a distant second was Cleveland Browns Stadium with 13 percent, followed by Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati with 12 percent. Paul Brown Tiger Stadium in Massillon and Fawcett Stadium in Canton, the current hosts of the six championship games, each received 11 percent.
When selecting sites for the championship games, officials for the Ohio High School Athletic Association say their ultimate goal is to give players an experience they will remember for a lifetime. But the players don’t get a say in the process.
The Dispatch decided to get their opinions heading into the season, which opens tonight. Using a short survey — not a scientific poll of all high schools — the newspaper selected 30 high-school football programs that routinely qualify for the state playoffs, competed in the championship games last year or played in one or more championship games in the past decade.
To represent large and small communities, the paper picked schools from each of Ohio’s six divisions, which are based on enrollment. The public and parochial schools represent every region of the state.
Ohio Stadium was not part of Columbus’ latest bid to host the games, but university officials say they will pursue them in the future.
OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross said any Columbus bid that includes Ohio Stadium likely would intensify the competition for the games.
"It would be tremendous for Columbus to have that facility in their bid," Ross said. "But we would give all bids for those games the same hard look."
Ohio Stadium was a popular pick among players even at schools that would be expected to support their hometown stadium. At Cincinnati Colerain, more than 65 percent picked Ohio Stadium. In Massillon, 32 players voted to move the games to Columbus, just eight fewer votes than their home field received.
Coaches surveyed are more split over the issue than their players.
"The Massillon/Canton area is the capital of high-school football in America," said coach Reno Saccoccia, of Steubenville. "Nothing beats a championship game in Massillon. Keep the games there."
Other coaches side with the majority of the players.
"How many people walking the earth can say they played football in Ohio Stadium?" said coach Dan Reardon, of Youngstown Ursuline. "If they can bring those games back to Ohio State, they should do it for the kids."
[email protected]
Dispatch
Friday, August 25, 2006
Dispatch
A title, and its pursuit, burnish lasting memories
Friday, August 25, 2006
Mike Wagner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
<!--PHOTOS--> <table class="phototableright" align="right" border="0"> <!-- begin large ad code --> <tbody><tr><td> <table align="center"> <tbody><tr><td align="center">
The thought of playing for a state high-school football championship makes that last sprint a little easier for the boys in pads. It fills the daydreams of coaches stuck in a film room watching past games. It can make a community long for fall.
Only a few teams get there. But for those that make it, and even those that come close, there are stories that never go away — stories that embody the passion of the game. Here is a sampling:
Snowflakes and fireworks
The coaches wipe the icy windshield all the way to Massillon as snow swirls harder with each passing mile.
The sweat socks stretched over the coaches’ arms need to be wrung out after the rusty chartered bus carrying the 2003 Avon Lake football team pulls into the stadium parking lot.
On the victory ride back to the Cleveland suburb, with the weather even worse, one of the buses catches fire and extinguishes any chance to make it back in time for the school rally. Smoke billows from the cabin, and players evacuate to the dark highway.
At 2 a.m. the weary team pulls into the school parking lot. There, snowflakes illuminate more than 3,000 fans.
Coach Dave Dlugosz still savors the scene. "They started shooting off fireworks in the snowstorm."
Iron gates and dreams
They could only peer through the iron-gated fence for a glimpse of the sun-baked green turf and yellow goal posts. Their first game was weeks away, but their coach took them to Massillon to dream.
On this summer day, the seniors on the Brookville football team vow to lead their teammates back to this stadium to play for a state championship.
Later that fall, in the 2000 regional finals, the team from west of Dayton is close to taking that bus back to Massillon. But one trick play leaves them at the same place they stood months before — at a steel black fence, a wish away.
"It’s been six years and I still think about that play," said coach Marc Gibson, who has since moved on to another school.
"My kids, our fans, our community … man we wanted to play in one of those championship games."
A broken leg and a promise
His leg snaps just before he crashes to the frozen field.
The 2005 championship game in Massillon is still in doubt and barely half over for undefeated Steubenville. Now, its captain, Jeremy Presley, is in an ambulance.
The grizzled coach kisses his middle linebacker on the forehead and makes a promise that his team helps him keep. The bus takes a detour on the victory ride home. "We can’t leave here without Jeremy," one player yells.
The two buses pull into the hospital and wait for the broken leg to be placed in a splint. Hours later, Jeremy and his football brothers are welcomed by what seems like all of Steubenville.
"We wouldn’t leave Jeremy," coach Reno Saccoccia says, "and our fans didn’t leave us."
[email protected]
Dispatch
Friday, August 25, 2006
Graphic of locations and revenue.
Dispatch
FIGHTING FOR THE FINALS
OSU wants title games in high-school football played in Horseshoe, but they won’t come easily
Friday, August 25, 2006
Mike Wagner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
<!--PHOTOS--> <table class="phototableright" align="right" border="0"> <!-- begin large ad code --> <tbody><tr><td> <table align="center"> <tbody><tr><td align="center">
Helmeted heads slumping over maize and blue uniforms. A scowl burning into the wrinkled face of the defeated coach. Frenzied Ohio State fans celebrating another win over their rival.
Beating Michigan, or any other team, is no longer the last image Jim Tressel wants to see in Ohio Stadium at the end of the regular football season.
The Buckeyes coach covets for Columbus what Canton and Massillon already own — the six Ohio high-school football championship games.
With up to $5 million in annual visitor spending at stake, Columbus, Cincinnati and other cities already are plotting to take the games away from northeastern Ohio, three years before the contract can be reopened for bidding.
Tressel and OSU Athletics Director Gene Smith have ended speculation about whether they would like the games in Ohio Stadium, where they were held during most of the 1980s.
"Without question, we want those games here in our stadium," Tressel said. "There is no stadium in this state, or maybe the country, like Ohio Stadium. It would be such a special experience in a special environment for the kids."
The quest to play in one of the championship games began on the steamy practice fields of August. It will end in early December for a dozen of more than 700 Ohio schools eligible for the tournament.
It might be easier for Tressel to win another national title than to help bring the highschool championship games back to Columbus.
Cincinnati officials want the games and are using power brokers such as Bengals owner Mike Brown to push their bid. Toledo would like the games. Cleveland officials say they will explore a potential bid.
The front-runner for future contracts remains Stark County, home to Massillon and Canton, which have hosted some or all of the championship games for the past 16 years.
That streak will continue through at least 2009. This spring, the Ohio High School Athletic Association, which sponsors and selects the site of the event, again awarded the contract to Canton and Massillon, where footballs still are placed in hospital cribs of newborn boys.
"In Columbus, the Buckeyes are the main attraction; in Cleveland and Cincinnati, the professional football teams take center stage; but in Massillon and Canton, Friday nights in the fall are what people live for," said Chris Spielman, a legendary football player at Massillon Washington High School and Ohio State. "I say leave the games there. It’s best to have the games where high-school football is the main priority."
The decision to keep the games in northeastern Ohio wasn’t popular with those across the state who think the event should have a central location, rotate among cities each year or be played in their own backyard.
"There is no way you can put those games in a corner of the state and say there isn’t an advantage for the teams up north," said Kerry Coombs, head coach of Cincinnati Colerain. "It’s a competitive advantage for teams on the field and an inconvenience for fans and schools in the southern part of Ohio."
Complaints about the long drive to Massillon or Canton have echoed for years at the opposite end of the state.
"We could be in North Carolina before we could play in Canton," said Terry Parker, a coach at Ironton. It’s about 260 miles from Ironton to Canton or Husk, N.C. "That travel just wears on you."
The high-school football playoffs typically begin around the state on the first weekend in November and conclude with the championship games the first weekend in December. A total of 192 teams qualify for the playoffs. After five rounds of games, a champion is crowned in each of six divisions.
Combined attendance for the six games typically is about 60,000.
The football playoffs, including the championship games, generated nearly $5 million last year for the OHSAA, nearly a third of its $16 million gross revenue.
"Not many states are blessed enough to have this many cities that have so much interest and ability to host these games," OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross said. "This says so much about the passion for high-school football in Ohio."
The fight for the games
The bronze statue of Paul Brown stands in front of Massillon’s cathedral, guarding the stadium’s heritage in the same way the coach’s teams would protect a fourth-quarter lead.
Brown’s championships were spread around the state, but his legacy is greatest in northeastern Ohio.
No one is more aware of that than his son Mike, the Cincinnati Bengals owner, who wants to move the high-school football championships to the Queen City, where another stadium bears his father’s name.
"I have great pride that my father was involved in making Massillon the football town it is, but Cincinnati also has strong high-school teams and tradition," Brown said. "We would love to have those games down here, and we made a strong bid to get them here."
Cincinnati’s elaborate bid to host all six games in the Bengals’ Paul Brown Stadium included a passionate speech by Brown to the OHSAA’s ninemember site-selection committee. City officials showcased the city and stadium for more than four hours.
Columbus officials made a similar presentation. Their plan was to play four games in Columbus Crew Stadium, home to the professional soccer team, and two games at Dublin Coffman High School.
But it wasn’t enough to overcome the Canton/Massillon bid.
OHSAA officials say the Canton/Massillon setting is almost perfect in every way. Support for high-school football is as rabid there as anywhere in the country. The high-school stadiums, which seat 22,360 and 16,392, provide an intimate setting where players are soaked in crowd noise.
Artificial surfaces in both stadiums protect against the nasty winter weather that often plagues the games. The fields are only 10 miles apart. They have plenty of parking, good lighting and modern press boxes for the media.
"There is a mystique, history and passion for this event that can’t be put on paper as a bid," Ross said. "We had three really strong bids, but for those two communities, this event takes center stage."
The cost of hosting the games also favors Canton and Massillon. Because of lower stadium operating expenses and no stadium rental fees, the Stark County bid will cost OHSAA $62,244. That would have been $125,000 in Cincinnati and $87,390 in Columbus.
Hotels and restaurants also are cheaper for visitors to Stark County. "Money is not the deciding factor, but it is something we look at," Ross said.
Canton officials estimate the high-school games generate up to $3 million for the local economy. Columbus and Cincinnati officials estimate visitor spending would have been about $5 million.
"It would be devastating on a lot of fronts if we lost the games, and money is a part of that," said Jeffrey John, who organizes Stark County’s bid. "We know the bidding process will intensify, and we know Columbus, with Ohio State, will be our main competition."
Return to the Horseshoe ?
Since Ohio Stadium switched from artificial turf to natural grass in 1990, OSU officials have shown little interest or given mixed signals to the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, which submits the city’s bid.
Now there is no more guessing.
"We want the games here, period," OSU’s Smith said. "We are going to work hard to bring those games here."
Smith and Tressel say holding high-school championships for any sport in Columbus helps attract potential students and Ohio’s top high-school athletic talent to their university.
"It certainly wouldn’t hurt our program’s recruiting," Tressel said. "Any time you give those young student-athletes the chance to experience what we have at Ohio State is going to help."
Tressel’s wish would be to hold all six championship games on campus, with three games each being played in Ohio Stadium and Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, which normally hosts track and field, soccer and lacrosse.
It would be a tight fit, but a football field could be lined within the Jesse Owens stadium to seat up to 14,000.
Two potential hurdles stand in Ohio Stadium’s way — its natural grass and cavernous size.
"All it would take is one badweather game on that grass field and the state championships would be ruined for everyone," said Tom Stacy, football coach of Massillon Washington. "Everyone loves the Buckeyes, but we shouldn’t play on grass, and the games would just get lost in a stadium that size."
Ohio Stadium has hosted 37 championship games, the last in 1989.
Bill Franks, the football coach at Newark Catholic, played in three of those games in the mid-1980s. He said about 5,000 fans occupied a stadium that held about 90,000 at the time, but crowd size didn’t detract from the atmosphere.
"It was electric in there, and it felt like the fans were right there," Franks said. "Massillon and Canton have great stadiums, but no other stadium has the same special feel as Ohio Stadium."
To help offset the stadium’s size, Smith thinks attendance for the games could be increased with aggressive marketing.
As for the grass, the field’s keepers say it would remain a safe playing surface for three high-school games even under brutal winter conditions.
"Even under the worst-case scenario with snow and rain, and the Michigan game being played at home, the field would hold up fine," said Brian Gimbel, grounds superintendent for Ohio State athletics. "It might look a little beat-up, but it would be stable for the players."
Ohio State revamped its playing surface in 2003 by installing an artificial-turf mat just below the rye-grass field. That grass now grows through the field’s sand underbelly and snarls into the artificial mat for more stability.
Tressel’s desire to bring the games back to the state capital is so high that he asked Gimbel about potentially changing Ohio Stadium’s surface to artificial turf. Ohio Stadium had artificial turf from 1971 to 1989.
"I told the coach we didn’t need to do that to get the highschool games and he said, ‘OK,’ " Gimbel said.
Part of their soul
Despite living virtually next door to one another, the only thing that seems to unify orange-wearing Massillon Washington Tiger fans and red-clad Canton McKinley Bulldog fans is hosting the high-school championship games.
Proof of that came a few years ago when the green turf at Canton’s Fawcett Stadium was buried under a half-foot of snow and the start of a championship game wasn’t far away. The Canton maintenance crew needed help. A few minutes later, police cruisers escorted two broomsweeping tractors from Massillon to help clear the field.
"Canton and Massillon are two towns that don’t like each other a whole lot," said Brian Cross, the Canton McKinley football coach. "But when it comes to these games, we work together, because we know how much they mean to our communities."
Every football season for Massillon and McKinley is measured by whether one can beat the other. More than a few punches have been thrown during a football rivalry that is more than a century old and considered by many the best high-school grudge match in the country.
The two schools have combined for 32 state championships and nearly 1,500 wins. They each rank in the top 10 nationally for all-time highschool victories.
But the thought of losing the championship games brings anxious glares from Massillon residents and business owners who consider the games their own.
Canton and Massillon have plenty of powerful boosters who help support the championship games with their time and checkbooks. Last year, a group of Massillon boosters raised $600,000 in less than four months for a new stadium scoreboard. "A big reason we did it was to keep those championship games here," said Bill Dorman, former president of the Massillon Tiger Football Booster Club.
Massillon also has raised $300,000 for new artificial turf to be installed for the 2007 season.
Money isn’t a motivating factor for the players, who love their stadium but dream of playing for the championship in Ohio Stadium, Cleveland Browns Stadium and other marquee venues.
"I think they should rotate the games around every year from here in Massillon to Canton and Columbus and Cincinnati to give everyone a chance to have the games," said Andrew Dailey, a senior linebacker for Massillon. "It doesn’t matter where they play the games for us because Massillon fans will go anywhere."
But other players, even those outside Massillon, say the games should stay in northeastern Ohio.
"Making it to Massillon is what every football player in this state has dreamed of for a long time," said Dane Sanzenbacher, a senior wide receiver for Toledo Central Catholic who has committed to play for Ohio State. "The games should stay there."
Alan Parnacott, owner of Massillon’s Coffee Cup restaurant, said both communities would be stripped of part of their identity if the games were played elsewhere.
"It would take a piece of this area’s soul if we ever lost those games," he said. "They belong up here. And I know everyone in Massillon and Canton will fight to keep them."
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