Prep football coverage will soon reach fever pitch

   As an adolescent and an avid sports fan, I would look forward to the outstanding coverage the city’s three (at the time) daily (at the time) newspapers gave high school sports.
   During the early-to-mid 1950s, prep sports coverage was at its greatest. It had to be because writers and editors of the three locals – The Times-Picayune, New Orleans States and New Orleans Item – were highly competitive in a market that catered to readers and not necessarily viewers. Then the T-P bought its two adversaries and created one morning and one evening newspaper.
    High school attendance was perhaps at its peak then. I remember as a young prep writer in the mid-1960s covering a football game between two mediocre teams playing before a crowd of 4,000-5,000 spectators. I tried to make the written account read like a major bowl game. It was fun.
    Then when the consolidation of the Times-Pic and States-Item came about in 1980, coverage changed. The “new look” T-P may have been aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but it was hardly friendly to the fanatical sports fan. The agate page started eliminating full boxes of football, basketball and baseball games, forsaking the creed that names make the news.
    Once the editors realized their error, coverage improved. Today, prep sports is once again an important and lucrative commodity. Even though the city’s two newspapers – one of which is delivered daily, and the other on a part-time basis – have made coverage competitive, they still fail to see the importance of full box scores, mainly because it’s not cost effective to hire part-timers to type the information. The devil may be in the details, but that’s where the real game story lies.
Yet, a silver lining
    This school year will be interesting. High school football coverage will be at its best when the season kicks off this week.
    Aside from the local newspapers’ offerings, prep fans will be treated to another season of prep football coverage from a number of sources.
    For the 11th consecutive year, WGSO 990-AM will host Ken Trahan’s Original Prep Football Report, beginning Sept. 6 and continuing through the Select and Non-select school championship games in early December.
    With nine affiliates, from Lake Charles to Monroe, on his broadcast chain, Trahan’s Original continues to expand its coverage, which features some of the most knowledgeable personalities in the business, including Ro Brown and former head coaches Henry Rando and Rick Gaille – three of the best football minds in the business.
    The Countdown show will air from 6:05 to 7 p.m., followed by four hours of scores, highlights and interviews until 11 p.m.
    WWL AM 870 has a similar Friday night scoreboard show.
    That’s just for starters.
    WGNO-TV sports anchor Ed Daniels and broadcast partner J.T. Curtis will host Friday Night Football. This has been the most popular post-game presentation for the past 21 years, and it seems to get better every season as Daniels drums up new ideas to pique the interest of advertisers.
    WGSO radio and WGSO.com will broadcast 18 football games during the regular season, including two key Catholic League matchups: Archbishop Rummel vs. Archbishop Shaw, Oct. 10; and Brother Martin vs. St. Augustine, Oct. 12.
    First NBC Bank Prep Showcase will sponsor eight football games on WHNO on a tape-delayed basis (mostly Saturdays at noon).
    As he has done for several years, First NBC president and CEO Ashton Ryan has stepped up to the plate to support high school athletics through a sponsorship.
    One of the broadcasts will be the traditional Jesuit vs. Holy Cross game on Oct. 11, which will air live at 7 p.m.
Catholic League on the web
    And now that the Catholic League is back together, former WGNO/ABC26 and WVUE Fox sportscaster Eric Richey will present a website dedicated to the league, nola.catholicleague.com.
    The site, a clone of his popular riverparishfootball.com, will include coverage and features of most, if not all, major sports. Richey has scheduled the site to be up and running by the start of the football season.
    Despite the “nola” prefix, Richey’s brainchild is not affiliated with any other nola website.
    Richey’s idea is to expand the Catholic League site to include more than just football coverage.
    “There has been great interest in not only Catholic League football, but basketball, baseball, soccer and wrestling as well,” Richey said.
    SportsNola.com has been a  great source of prep information for more than a year, using the most experienced and knowledgable media professions in the New Orleans area.
    And in yet another broadcast avenue, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association has renewed its partnership with the New Orleans Saints as title sponsor of the LHSAA Game of the Week, beginning on Sept. 5 with subsequent games airing weekly throughout the season on Thursday nights.
    The games will be carried across the state on Fox Sports New Orleans, locally on Cox 38, Fox Sports Channel 79 and on Fox New Orleans HD, channel 1038.
    The schedules appear below.
    Ron Brocato can be reached at [email protected].

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RADIO, TV SCHEDULES