SPB's High School Football

This blog knows it isn’t anything without its fans. And today — while I’m trying to keep my mind on football while covering the James-Blake-Less Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament — here’s a shout out to former Connecticut Post reporter Sean Barker.

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It’s here. It’s finally here.

After more than nine months of waiting, the weightlifting competitions, the linemen camps, those exotic 7-on-7 passing leagues and a bunch of other offseason garbage that included several players from the defending Class LL champion Greenwich football team (which was deftly covered by the Greenwich Citizen sports editor Scott Ferarri in this Aug. 7 story) its finally time to grab the water buckets, push out the tackling sleds, the orange cones and old tires (unless you’re one of those special-interest clods from the North Haven-based Environment and Human Health Inc. group attempting to abolish field turf) and hit the fields…

It’s football time.

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vs. and vs.

I got an email from Ansonia alum (and fan of this blog) Chris Lisi, who wants to let everybody know about a new community even and fundraiser Ansonia is planning for August 30 at Jarvis Stadium, which is about the usual time we around here can’t wait to feast our eyes on the annual Ansonia-West Haven scrimmage.

This year, instead of getting just Ansonia-West Haven, the Chargers are packaging a whole day around two scrimmages featuring some of the top programs in the state — defending Class S and No. 1 Ansonia vs. West Haven; defending Class L and No. 3 Bunnell vs. Class LL playoff participant Central

This being a weblog (where space isn’t limited) and not the newspaper (where space is), I’ll run Chris’ press release verbatim. If you feel like getting involved or would like to know more (not that this this was brief or anything) contact numbers are at the bottom. It looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

SPB

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Last year, Shelton, Fairfield Prep, heck, all of Connecticut football sparkled in front of the tri-state area on MSG when the Gaels came back to defeat the Jesuits 26-21 in front of a packed house of 5,000 at Finn Stadium.

It was, MSG’s Mike Quick said at the time, one of the best high school games MSG had ever broadcast. It was a game no doubt supercharged thanks to the suggestion from Fairfield Prep senior Ryan Nolan that, “Shelton should be afraid of us because we have the best team in the SCC.”

Poetically, after Nolan blocked a game-tying extra point kick, Shelton’s Geoff Schultz slipped past the charging linebacker and into the end zone for the winning points with just under a minute left.

About a month ago, Fairfield Prep coach Rich Magdon stirred me from slumber with a call to say Prep is going back on MSG, a fact reinforced when MSG released its tentative high school football schedule for the 2008 season (check it out here).

All of this is just a long-winded way of saying…

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The 2008 High School football season is underway! Yes, this is no joke. Week 1 of the regular season has come and gone…

…In Alaska.

While we in Connecticut have a little over four weeks remaining until the kickoff of the 2008 season (one of the LAST 50 states to kick off, mind you), they’re well underway in places like Anchorage, Fairbanks and … yes, Barrow.

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For those of you out of the loop, this year the calendar allows for an 11th game instead of the normal 10. In years past, 11th games have allowed for some pretty intriguing non-league matchups on Week 1.

While that’s certainly the case this year, the some thickheaded and — dare we say “lazy” — league athletic directors and administrators (seems like we have plague of these in this state) have in their infinite wisdom filled the 11th games with league games (cough, cough, FCIAC! FCIAC! Cough, cough NVL! NVL!)

I’ll have much, much more to say about these knuckleheads. For now, let’s extol the virtues of the teams and leagues who went out and found great non-league matchups for Week 1. Games involving regional teams are in bold.

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Since our first football comment of the year on this blog asked for rankings, we’re going to leave it to you:

Give us what you think should be the preseason Top 10 football teams in the state. Try to be as accurate as possible, thinking of who’s here and who’s gone.

Feel free to state your case for each team in one sentence.

Have fun!

SPB

It was just over a year ago, at the American Legion State Baseball tournament in Middletown, where Staples assistant Jack McFarland gave us the first insight into a young Swedish man named Hampus Hellermark, who was attempting to come to Westport and play football as an exchange student.

Hellermark ran for 649 yards and six touchdowns and also played defensive back for the Wreckers, who went 8-0 but lost its last two games of the year — Thanksgiving to Greenwich for the FCIAC championship and to Bunnell in the Class L semifinals.

He returned to Sweden shortly thereafter and, aside from a mention or two in passing, that was that for Hampus.

Until now. His father, Anders Hellermark, emailed an update over to Connecticut Post writer Mike Cardillo.

Hampus is still playing football and doing extremely well, he was named the MVP of the European Junior Championship tournament in Seville, Spain. Hellermark won the rushing title with 404 yards in three group games, over 100 more than any other back in the tournament, and scored four touchdowns.

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