High School Football

The Five Best High School Football Stadiums in DFW

Saying that high school football is big in Texas will elicit a lot of "duh" looks. In fact, if you look in a mirror right now, you'll probably see what we're talking about. But there's no harm in restating the obvious: Friday nights are meant to be spent under stadium lights (see what we did there?) ... More >>

In Honor of Prime Prep: 10 of Texas' Biggest High School Sports Scandals

Saying Texas takes high school sports seriously is like saying it can get a bit warm here in the summer. Contests between kids make adults do crazy things, like, say, letting a certain former football player open up a state-funded charter school. Or worse. Check out some of the low-lights of Texas h ... More >>

Mountain Goats Played Like Hometown Heroes at Dan's Silverleaf

The Mountain Goats With Loamlands Dan's Silverleaf, Denton Friday, June 20, 2014 By Jezy J. Gray I first saw the Mountain Goats in 2006 at The Opolis in Norman, Oklahoma. I was 19 and the band had just released their Get Lonely LP, songwriter John Darnielle's most polite and somber offering to dat ... More >>

Dallas Doctor Busted Under Texas' Improper Photography Law, Which Sure Seems Unconstitutional

In late March, the parent of a high school cheerleader emailed a tip to the Observer. Last fall, she wrote, Dallas radiologist Dr. James Summa was arrested at a Mesquite High School football game and charged with improper photography for snapping pictures of underage girls. We confirmed the arrest ... More >>

Allen's $60 Million Football Stadium a Casualty of "Improper" Concrete Work, Report Says

When Allen ISD announced two weeks ago that its brand-new, $60 million high school football stadium had developed cracks in the concourse, it was clear that someone had screwed up in epic fashion. One doesn't shut something down, disrupt graduation ceremonies, and call every reporter in earshot to a ... More >>

Night Vale in the Big City

Allen's Brand-New $60 Million High School Football Stadium Has Some Worrisome Cracks

Football is very important to the city of Allen. It's a place where youth football coaches recruit 12-year-old players with Gatorade and Now and Laters, where anything less than a state championship is a disappointment. This passion is most fully expressed in Eagle Stadium, the state-of-the-art, $6 ... More >>

Gun Enthusiasts Take Aim at Denton Guyer Over Innocuous AP History Texts

Denton, despite the best efforts of the UNT student body and its lefty professors, has managed to hold on to the attributes of your typical small Texas city. A lot of people there still enjoy pickups, which they drive to high school football games while listening to country music and eating barbecue ... More >>

A Dead Goat Was Hanged from Berkner High's Goal Post on Eve of Plano East Football Game

Plano East High School slaughtered Richardson's Berkner Rams on Friday night in the completely metaphorical sense that its football team scored more points (34) than its rival (13). The night before, the slaughter was quite literal. Members of Berkner's marching band arrived at the high school's fo ... More >>

Del Shores' Yellow Takes a Jaundiced View of Family Life at Uptown Players

Screw the White House: Let's Focus on Keeping Texas from Becoming Teabagistan

There's a danger in getting too invested in presidential debates and the whole national political saga, gripping as it may be. By turning our faces to bright lights far away, we risk forgetting just how dark things could get here at home in November. The Tea Party is poised to make its ultimate as ... More >>

Wait, What Kind of Highlights Are We Talking About?

Friday Night Lights and Road Trip Insights

Caraway: "In My Opinion, Skyline Won That Game, and All of the Players are Champions."

​This is not the first time Dwaine Caraway has stood up for Skyline High School. Three years ago, back when the Dallas ISD first toyed with tinkering with its magnets, the District Four council member -- and Roosevelt grad -- went to the board of trustees and demanded they keep their hands off Sky ... More >>

Hometown Heroes

Concussing Our Kids, One Hit At a Time

While pro sports finally fess up to the dangers of high-impact athletics, trainers, coaches, parents and lawmakers struggle to curb head injuries that are even more dangerous for kids.

A Sneak Peek at Web Doc About How Jared Williams's Injury Changed an Entire Community

On October 1, 2009, 14-year-old Jared Williams, at the time a freshman defensive back on the Pinkston High School varsity football team, was paralyzed from the waist down in a game against North Dallas High School. As The News would explain a few days later: "He had struck his head against another p ... More >>

I'll Admit It, I Was Dead Wrong About Todd Dodge

​Something I thought I'd never write in 2011: Todd Dodge is the new quarterbacks coach at Pitt. By now I figured Dodge -- who ascended from historic success at Southlake Carroll High School to a gig at North Texas -- would be choosing from primo Division I jobs in the wake of multip ... More >>

Fragels Rock: A Bagel-Doughnut That Tastes Like Home

​Rooting for Ohio State isn't an easy thing for a native Michigander to do. But we Midwesterners believe conference loyalty trumps internecine rivalries (I'm told SEC fans take a different approach), so last night I cheered for the Buckeyes in the Sugar Bowl -- a task made exponentially easier ... More >>

Go For Two

Veterans Day, Meet Texas High School Football Veterans Week

​On Veterans Day we stop -- if only for a minute -- to thank all those who have served in our military and fought to provide us the freedom to do things like vote, drink beer, sleep in if we want and, of course, blog insanely and/or sharply and anonymously criticize those who blog.. ... More >>

Cowboys Stadium to Host, Well, Everything

You've come a long way, baby.​Cowboys Stadium hasn't yet officially celebrated its 1st birthday. Yet, by my count, the joint in Arlington has already hosted: Pro football College football High school football Pro basketball College basketball A high-school prom A high-school graduation ... More >>

A Parade of Carter Cowboys

​For no apparent reason, other than this marks the 47th anniversary of when Parade magazine began naming players to its All America High School Football Team, the Sunday supplement today has listed its The Top 10 High School Football Programs. The ranking process was simple enough: They just talli ... More >>

GQ Goes in the Trenches With the Writers and Editors at ESPN's Dallas Site

​For his new piece about how ESPN's locally focused Web sites are proof that the Worldwide Leader's "thinking bigger than ever," per GQ's headline, New York Magazine contributing editor Gabriel Sherman spent most of his time in Dallas with the likes of Calvin Watkins, Tim MacMahon and other ex-dai ... More >>

Super Bowl XLV: Century in the Making

​In Texas, the old saying goes, there exist only two sports: Football. And spring football. God, after all, decreed Texas Stadium have a hole in its roof so he could look down upon his favorite team. Right? From the old wooden Fair Park Bowl through the Cotton Bowl, Texas Stadium and now the ... More >>

Super Bowl XLV to Bring Quite the Collection of Gridiron Greats to Woodrow Next Week

​Tony Fay started working for the Dallas Mavericks in 1987 as the media relations intern; by the time he left in '99, he was director of communications -- which was no easy feat back then, given that was six months before Mark Cuban bought the then-struggling franchise just off a lockout season. T ... More >>

Corporal Punishment at Dallas Lickin' High School

I'm 44. But I'm about to sound 84. It was a better world when paddling was a part of school. A safer world when "licks" between a teacher and student were punishment rather than perverted pleasure. Hear me out: I'm not condoning the 21 "licks" allegedly applied to the backside of a Lincoln High Scho ... More >>

Today’s Sign of the Apocalypse

Three yards and a cloud of ... California rolls? Sushi? At a Texas high school football game? The sound you hear is Tom Landry, rolling over in his grave. -- Richie Whitt

Quarterback Sneak Attack

Second Thought combines pigskin and mayhem

High School Football: Too Big-Time for its Britches, Says One Writer

Dunno if you read this Friday, but Slate previewed Saturday night's Miami Northwestern-Southlake Carroll game with an essay by Robert Andrew Powell, author of We Own This Game: A Season the in the Adult World of Youth Football. Even before Northwestern toppled Southlake Carroll 29-21 in front 31,896 ... More >>

Blasts From The Past ... Er, Present ... Um, Future?

Hmmm, whatever happened to ol’ whatzizname? Um, ya know, Ben Grieve? Seems the former Arlington Martin High School stud and 1998 American League Rookie of the Year is still swatting homers, but settling for winning the home run derby at charity events like this one on Saturday in Frisco. Hmmm, wha ... More >>

The Friday Night Lights Stay on for Dallas Actress Liz Mikel

Liz Mikel, a familiar face (and voice) on Dallas stages, will continue her run on NBC, thanks to last week's good-news announcement. The news late last week that Friday Night Lights will be back for a sophomore season on NBC was no surprise to Dallas-based actress Liz Mikel. She had faith all along. ... More >>

Tubal Migration

TV brings big Break, hot Lights to Dallas actors; plus, theater's best 10 of 2006

Dodgeball

North Texas' new football coach will be fast, furious and fruitful

UNT = BCS

Just so happens that I scooted out to Southlake today to speak with Carroll High School coach Todd Dodge for next week's column. Ta-da! Whaddya know? On my way it was announced that Dodge has accepted a job to coach the University of North Texas. This, of course, pisses me right off -- not because ... More >>

Pick Your Pleasure (or Poison)

www.marcusfootball.com With so many obvious sports options in front of ya this weekend, do the unexpected and check out upcoming high-school phenom Matt Faulkner instead? A sports weekend like this comes around only, oh, about once a decade. So many options, so little time. And TVs. If I were you, ... More >>

Val Holla!

Uptown presents parallels in comedy

Cue Aretha Franklin

We now take this brief T.O. from T.O. to talk about positive, harmonious, winning football: So what do two consecutive mythical national championships, a 63-1 record over four years and a 32-game winning streak get you? If you're the Southlake Carroll High School football team, it gets you a sl ... More >>

Great Scots

Terrell Owens Loves Kids!

At least, that's what Dallas Cowboys' wide receiver wants you to think as tries to ingratiate himself to a community more inclined to remember him as the dude who took a figurative dump on the Texas Stadium star during his days as a trouble-makin' Philadelphia Eagle. Says here on his Web site that i ... More >>

Jock Strapped

On a clear, blue Thursday morning--which is to say, today--Dallas City Council member Gary Griffith announced his candidacy for mayor on the stone steps of Woodrow Wilson High School, where he was a student some 40 years ago. As he stood atop the podium, a life-sized poster of him as a teenage footb ... More >>

Hell of a Catch

Friday Night Lights goes deep, rare for a movie about football

Friday Night Lite

Far away from big cities, big stadiums and big offensive lines, six-man football keeps the game pure

Getting Madden

A McKinney family sues Fox for sacking a young quarterback's dream