Thursday, June 21, 2007
MICHAEL CASAGRANDE
News staff writer
Birmingham News
Hoover High's football game in the Kirk Herbstreit Ohio vs. USA Challenge is on - but not on a Sunday and not on national television.
Coach Rush Propst said the Buccaneers will play Colerain High of Cincinnati on Saturday, Sept 1. The Bucs originally were slated to play Colerain on Sunday, Sept. 2, with the game airing on ESPN.
But the Alabama High School Athletic Association, which must sanction out-of-state contests, ruled against a Sunday game, citing it as a day most people attend church services on Sunday.
After two appeals, the AHSAA's Central Board of Control upheld the ruling on the grounds that it would go against a long-standing precedent of not allowing athletic events to be scheduled on Sundays, except in emergency situations.
The game, which is to be played at Nippert Stadium on the campus of the University of Cincinnati, tentatively is set for 1:15 p.m. CDT, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer's Web site. Efforts to reach event organizers for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
"Our whole issue was we wanted exposure on national TV and (Sunday) was the time allotted on ESPN," Propst said. "Our next-best option, and it's a good option, is to go back to Saturday. We just won't have 115 million homes watching."
The game between the two prep powerhouses is the marquee contest in an 11-game slate, but with the college football season opening on Sept. 1, there are no available Saturday time slots for the game to appear on the national network.
Outgoing Hoover Athletics Director Jerry Browning said the school is working on getting HSTV, which carried the state football playoffs, to televise the Hoover-Colerain game back to viewers in Alabama.
The Sunday ESPN time slot was switched to the game between DeMatha High School of Maryland and Saint Xavier of Cincinnati. News staff writer Jon Solomon contributed to this report. sports@bhamnews.com