Is there such thing as prep sports overload?

I ask because in the summertime, when the days are carefree, the breezes are warm and the passion on the fields and floors are at a sleepy lull, we prep sports junkies pine for the scholastic season...mostly because there's so little to write about.

But to quote the irrepressible one, ESPN's Lee Corso, not so fast my friend. On Saturday we kissed the prep football season to bed for another year with the MHSAA finals at Ford Field, and Monday night we said hello to another basketball season with the opening games for the girls' campaign.

Wow. A whole 48 hours of down time. I could barely book an overnight with a round-trip flight to New York City for a quickie trip to 72nd and Amsterdam for a Grey's Papaya special in that time. In case you're wondering, that's two New York-style hot dogs and a large fruit drink for $3.50. Where's Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte when I need them? At least we got to skip the Lions on Sunday. Ah, small favors.

It used to be football season ended and there was at least a little down time, even if that was one short week. This year, like it was last year, the knickers are barely out of the dryer and into the storage bin from football season as the basketball shirts, pants and whistles are being yanked out for another season.

And who do we have to thank for this? That handful of mothers from Grand Rapids, who over 10 years ago declared that they were going to change the world for the better by forcing the Michigan High School Athletic Association to move girls basketball to the winter with the boys. By doing this, volleyball would be playing the fall and Michigan would join the other 49 states in that time-honored game, Follow The Leader.

In the meantime, I'm tired...of being tired.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, due out in August of 2009 from Arcadia Publishing

If you had asked most prep football fans after Week Three of the 2008 MHSAA football season where the strength of the state lied in terms of regional supremacy, more would have voted for the lower west side of the state than voted for Barack Obama two weeks ago.

Thanks to Oakland County's strong showing and a handful of schools in and around metro Detroit, any mandate from the voters 10 weeks ago carries about as much clout as a restaurant bill signed on behalf of the City of Detroit by county inmate Kwame Kilpatrick.

Three of the four schools from the Division I semifinals were metro Detroit schools, including Lake Orion, who was breathing fire instead of cold breath in a start-to-finish domination of the Dearborn Fordson Tractors at Troy Athens tonight. Livonia Stevenson has made back-to-back trips to the semifinals, a strong testament to the quality of play in the Kensington Lakes league.

Detroit Country Day, Bloomfield Hills Lahser, Southfield High, Warren DeLaSalle and Inkster's Vikings all made it to the semifinal showdowns today, with DCD, Inkster and DeLaSalle advancing to next week's chapionships at Ford Field. The possibility of having four Oakland County schools playing for championships didn't come to fruition but it's still an impressive feat that the possibility even existed. The Yellowjackets are returning for a back-to-back finals appearance and there's a chance that two Oakland County teams and four metropolitan schools could earn titles next weekend.

Obviously Lake Orion's rematch with Rockford will be the most highly-discussed game in some time because a start and finish bookend games between two East-West superpowers is also about as likely as the Lions beating Tennessee on Turkey Day. The two schools opened the season at Eastern Michigan University's Rynearson Stadium and the Rams emerged as 17-7 victors.

Now we as a community and region must support our own cause. Two mega days of prep football at Ford Field. It's time to bolster our own economy and and show the flag of the east side of the state. Our youth from four local schools located in three different counties will be ready, willing and able on the field -- will we return the favor in the stands?

This morning Detroit Free Press preps writer Mick McCabe grabbed the attention of every official in the metro Detroit area, and probably many statewide, too.

McCabe wrote about the standard to bear for a game official to be assigned the tournament finals, including the way an official receives a rating, a lack of accountability if an official makes a mistake and finally, why the best officials aren't always on the biggest games because the state has a five-year respite rule for officials between finals' assignments.

A great read and a good snapshot of the officiating culture in the MHSAA footprint, except for one missing point, a large point of contention if you ask me and many others, and it has to do with why officials who work the finals can't receive the same assignment for another five seasons.

The five-year respite rule is in place because the same officials from the same zones got the same championship assignments for years and years and years under former leadership. Why did that happen? One, there was no such rule to prohibit the practice. Second, every officiating association is asked to submit a list of 10 names for the annual, championship tournaments. Many years the favorite sons of the power brokers in these associations were penned in at the expense of other deserving officials, sometimes under an erase-and-replace scenario. I know -- it's happened to me and many others.

That's politics, to make it short and sweet. Give MHSAA Associate Director Mark Uyl and the MHSAA credit for trying to share the playoff experience by expanding the field of qualified officials. This motivates more officials to work harder to polish their craft and helps extinguish the belief that the playoffs are an exclusive club for a select few officials. McCabe points out a handful of mistakes in last week's games as evidence that this policy is misguided. That's a fair complaint. There's a few growing pains, but expanding the pool of qualified playoff officials won't come without a few bumps and bruises. No one wants to see a mistake impact a game, and no athletic director wants to have that mistake happen in their school's game, but how do you expand that pool and expect perfection? Something's got to give.

I used to wonder how I can work three sports collegiately, one at the Division-I level, and not get past the quarterfinal in every state tournament since I became eligible except one. Then I got a good look at the nomination process, and the truth is, being a good politician goes a lot further than being a good official. I'm not saying good officials don't get good assignments, but I am saying I'm not the first official to feel this way. On the other hand, it's always easy to feel slighted because every good official feels they're not moving up the ladder the way they should. I've made some mistakes in my officiating career, so I'm humble enough to be thankful for what I have been assigned and not lament what I haven't been assigned.

McCabe points out a fairly accurate number of flaws in the ratings system but there's a caveat to the coaches' ratings that was overlooked. A lot of officials pass on the right call, the tough call and sometimes, the call that is both of those things to keep a good rating in tact. That's not wrong, that's simply playing by the rules. That McCabe has never seen a flagged waved off all year could be a possible example of this. Most qualified officials know some coaches don't know the rules or don't recognize all the indicators of a good official, so they protect themselves from a bad rating from the coaches. That's simply insulating yourself from a bad mark from those who have the most influence.

Is that any different than any other workplace culture in America? No.

The MHSAA represents the schools, so ultimately, it's the schools that are comfortable with these decisions. The flaws in the ratings system that McCabe illustrated are correct. Trust me when I say the schools, the MHSAA, the coaches and officials across the state know the rating system is flawed when it comes to giving an accurate picture of an official's true acumen. But there's little resource to offer anything else at the high school level. It's not a perfect world.

I think the MHSAA is doing the right thing, slowly but surely, in expanding the pool of qualified officials. It will take some time. The officials will make some mistakes. The MHSAA will make an assignment or two they regret. Mistakes will happen. There's some conflict-of-interest issues and some repetitive assignment issues to still be ironed out. It takes a long time to change long-held beliefs and cultures. Be patient.

The MHSAA and the schools they represent can't expect their best officials to be able to officiate forever. Officiating isn't a growth industry and the MHSAA is doing what they can to change that, so you can't expect progress without a few mistakes.

Prep sports is ultimately about doing your best, working hard to improve yourself and your team and being a good representative of your community. The MHSAA's officiating platform has to be allowed to expand under the same guidelines.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, due August 2009 from Arcadia Publishing

With apologies to those I've kept in the dark (that's you, M.L.), here's the skinny on the trivia question I offered for five free books at my signing this past Thursday at the Bloomfield Hills Barnes & Noble.

Question No. 1: What metro Detroit high school did Al Fracassa coach at before assuming the football fortunes at Birmingham Brother Rice?

Fracassa was also the coach for the Knights of Royal Oak's Shrine High School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Surprised? With Jim Manilla at Royal Oak High in the late 50s, and his stable of assistants that included 'Pin' Ryan, 'Ivy' Loftin, Paul Temerian and Frank Joranko, Royal Oak was a football hotspot during the high school sock-hop era.

In '62, Fracassa's Knights were 6-1-1. They tallied wins over notables like Detroit Holy Redeemer (15-0), Redford St, Mary's (19-0) and a 27-6 win over newly-opened Birmingham Groves. Shrine tied Detroit Servite in a 20-point stalemate for both teams. The only loss for Shrine was a 25-6 setback to Grosse Pointe St. Ambrose, which leads us to the conclusion of Question No. 2.

Question No. 2: What metro Detroit high school did George Perles lead before his days with the Pittsburgh Steelers and later, the Michigan State Spartans?

Perles was head coach at Grosse Pointe's St. Ambrose High. In '62, Perles and his Cavaliers went a perfect 9-0 in marching to the Catholic League championship and Goodfellows Game title. In that Goodfellows Game, St. Ambrose blanked the 8-0 Cardinals of Detroit Cooley, 19-0, on the floor of Tiger Stadium. It was the second-straight domination at 'The Corner' that day, because hours earlier, the Detroit Lions manhandled the previously-undefeated Green Bay Packers 26-14 in the now-famous Thanksgiving Day Massacre. The Lions sacked Hall-Of-Fame quarterback Bart Starr 11 times before the Cavaliers sacked Cooley's state championship dreams.

The state's Associated Press poll rewarded St. Ambrose, which closed in the spring of 1972, with the No. 3 ranking in the final Class B poll of '62. Also of note in Class B that year was West Bloomfield (7-0-1), which earned the 6th position, followed by Dearborn Divine Child (8th / 8-0) and Clawson High's Trojans, 10th with a record of 7-1.

Despite the loss, Detroit Cooley was awarded the No. 4 slot in the Class A poll in '62. Frank Joranko's Ferndale Eagles were sixth with the identical 8-1 record Ferndale High achieved this season. Hamtramck's Cosmos were 9th with a 7-1 slate and Seaholm was 10th at 8-1. Ann Arbor's Pioneer was the state champion in Class A for 1962.

The Fabulous Falcons! Perhaps the best story to emerge from the 2008 high school football season statewide might be the Farmington High Falcons. On September 12, Farmington was humiliated in a 63-0 loss to Rochester Adams High School, the Falcons' 15th-consecutive loss dating back to a 7-0 loss to Royal Oak's Ravens, coached by Terry Powers, on Oct 13, 2006.

I can't state for certain if it's ever happened before, because I don't have the time to go through the records of nearly 800 high schools, some closed many years ago, dating back to 1975, but I would imagine the list of schools who have lost 15 consecutive games in any stretch of seasons and found enough wins in any season to a) break the streak and b) make the playoffs is a short one.

In fact, if I were a betting man, and I'm not, I would say it's probably never happened before.

To pen a story that details 15 straight losses, capped by a 63-0 loss, followed by six-straight wins, including the school's first win over Farmington Hills Harrison in 31 seasons and a win over rival North Farmington to earn a state playoff berth, would probably get most Hollywood script writers laughed into the circular file.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction but no matter what happens to the Falcons in the playoffs, Farmington's revival is one of the great stories of Michigan's 2008-09 scholastic year.