By now, you’ve heard that Grant High won the California Interscholastic Federation Open Division State Football Championship Bowl Game on Saturday night in Carson, CA. Fox 40 took the lead with their extensive coverage of the game. Watch the kids arrive in Northern California from cbs13.com. Ah, to be young again…

What’s really exciting here is how quickly the community gathered around to schedule a parade to celebrate the victory.

Twin Rivers School District officials, and city officials, are scrambling to lock down speakers, publicize the event, and make other preparations. “We got a permit rushed right though and every one is very excited to celebrate some good news,” said school district spokeswoman Trinette Marquis…Marquis said the Sacramento police and fire departments have chipped in by handing out fliers in addition to their normal crowd control and safety duties. The district’s automated phone system will be making more than 25,000 phone calls to invite district students, parents and staff to the parade and rally.

That’s good stuff right there. *rant* Seriously, how many more news stories about how things haven’t begun to suck yet can we all take? We get it! */rant*

The parade (great use of umapper.com, btw) is set to start at 1 p.m. at Grant High School and end with a 3:30 p.m. rally at the City Hall at 9th and I streets.

The Grant High School Pacers, the top area Division II football team, has been ranked #58 in the nation by Yahoo’s Rivals.com, my Yahoo home page tells me. Nifty.

Though a more important number for the Pacers is their #2 ranking by ESPN’s CalHiSports.com. (So they’re D-I in the state, but D-II in Sac-Joaquin? I’m going to need MSN’s Google’s Wikipedia to explain that to me. Obviously different measures are used by CIF and Sac-Joaquin.) Apparently that #2 ranking means they are looking at a berth in the CIF state championship game on December 20, where they would play the top D-2 school from So Cal. It’s a big weekend for local prep football, as Casa Robles are (apparently I’m British) still in play for the D-II CIF championship berth.

The Pacers and Rams should wear FlyJumpers Power Jumping Stilts Friday night in their Sac-Joaquin section championship games, that could put them over the edge…

Great story about the Cristo Rey High School football team in today’s Bee. Go Saints!

Tomorrow, the CIF will bring the best high school basketball teams from Northern California to Arco Arena for the NorCal championship games. Next weekend, the NorCal champs will face the SoCal winners in the finals. The Sac-Joaquin Section boasts several teams that have a shot at the state championship, so let’s get pumped and show some support! Woo!

In Division 1, Kennedy has the #2 raked girls team in NorCal. They will face #1 ranked Berkeley High in the semi-finals to see who will face the SoCal champion.

In Division 2 girls, #1 St. Francis will face #6 Archbishop Mitty.

The game of the year is definitely the Division 3 girls semi-final, with the only two undefeated teams in California vying for the NorCal title. #2 St. Mary’s of Stockton (GO RAMS!!!!!) will face #1 Sacred Heart Cathedral (SF).

The Division 3 boys match features a battle of the upsetting underdogs, with #7 Sacramento High battling #6 Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Best of luck to all of our local teams!

Have y’all seen KCRA promoting “our new site, highschoolplaybook.com”? And have you also seen the commercial on KCRA for highschoolplaybook.com, clearly indicating that our region is just one of the communities featured on the site. (That commercial, by the way, is very confusing … the young gal is interviewing the football star, and then suddenly the sound goes out on them? implying to me that they are falling in wuv, but without that classical music snippet that they play when people are in wuv, you know the one. I assume it was written by Mozart.)

I assumed it was one of those mistakes about computers that old people make, like saying “how can I download the internet.” It made me wonder why they didn’t promote their new video feature a few months back as “our new online video site, YouTube.com”…

However, it took the wind out of my sails when I saw that the site is actually a property of Hearst-Argyle Television. Abort snark!!

In researching the below “beat the heat” post, I came across info about the city swim league and it brought back a wave of nostalgia for my days as a Glenn Hall River Rat. There seems to have been some contraction in the City’s recreational swim league since those days. Apparently now there are only 6 teams–Glenn Hall, Clunie, Oki/Sim, and then 3 conglomerates of Cabrillo/Mangan/Meadowview/Kennedy, Tahoe/McClatchy/Johnson/Southside and Doyle/Johnston/Natomas.

I do remember a Cabrillo/Mangan/Sim combo team, but I also distinctly remember teams existing at Southside, Doyle, Oki, and Tahoe. (Of course, since almost all of the older pool facilities look identical I might be misremembering.)
Continue reading “Rah Rah Hall!!” »

The gossip (well, news) from Antelope is that Center High’s football coach, Digol J’Beily, was fired from his post because of a vendetta from a former parent of a kid passed over for starting quarterback. Who do these trustees of Center High think they are? Did they think they were involved in Texas high school football? It’s Center High. I have lived here for 25 years and I don’t even know where Center High is. (I do, actually, but the point is still good.)

However, I would totally wear a “FREE J’BEILY” shirt. I want one of those.