Pontiac Central played their final boys' basketball game last night. Birmingham Seaholm sent the Chiefs into the history books with a 67-47 defeat in a Division 1 district game.

With apologies to Denzel Washington, today, I find it apropos to make a statement about this quiet passing.

Remember the Chiefs.

There was no ceremony, no remembrance and none of the passion and pride for the city of Pontiac the Chiefs used to evoke. In that way, Central's last game was very Brooklyn Dodger-esque. The Dodgers played their final game at a decaying Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957 and sadness and bitterness converged for the Ghosts of Flatbush at the intersection of Bedford, Sullivan and McKeever Place. A scant 6,702 showed for the final game versus Pittsburgh. Brooklyn blanked the Bucs, 2-0.

There's a sense of sadness in Pontiac today because the Chiefs left the prep basketball landscape rather meekly, similar to Royal Oak Dondero's final football season. Central and rival Pontiac Northern will merge after this year. Teachers are being fired en masse. It's going to be a difficult transition, mashed into a five-month timetable. Pontiac's consolidation is considerably different than Royal Oak's Kimball & Dondero from three years ago. Some, including Coach Chuck Jones, thought the 'new' Royal Oak High School should be re-named with the 'old' name of Acorns and given a color combination of the blue n' white of Dondero and the blue n' gold of Kimball, merged into the 'new' blue, gold & white of Royal Oak High.

That's not an option in Pontiac. The Chiefs are Pontiac like the Tigers' olde English 'D' is Detroit. Only in the last 10-15 years did Central finally omit the 'Pontiac' from their uniforms and go with the word 'Central'. I'm researching Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries and the contribution from Pontiac Central High to metro Detroit's basketball heritage is comparable to what Catholic Central or Brother Rice added to the Catholic League.

~The Elusive Championship~

Of course, you might be inclined to tell me that Catholic Central and Brother Rice, the last two private schools to win a Class A boys' basketball title in Michigan, have indeed won championships. And Central's city rival, Pontiac Northern, won back-to-back Class A titles in 2001-02. Central never did.

True, it never happened when it mattered most for Pontiac Central. The Chiefs never won any of the five Class A title games they played in. But the NCAA tells us the 'Fab Five' never happened at Michigan, too. Does anyone really believe those Michigan Wolverines didn't leave a lasting impact on college basketball just because the NCAA says so? From 1959-79, Pontiac Central went to 11 MHSAA semifinals -- in 20 years! Zero wins in those title games might make them the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings of prep cagers in the eyes of some. It's fair. But Art VanRyzin and Ralph Grubb, Pontiac's coaches during this amazing era, never gave up, never quit trying. Further, the Chiefs didn't just compete but were a perennial power in the Saginaw Valley Conference. There was not a single prep league in the entire state of Michigan better than 'The Valley' during that time period.

Perhaps it was fitting that Seaholm and Central were paired for Central's last hurrah. Seaholm was formerly the original Birmingham High Maples and Central was originally Pontiac High's Chiefs. Birmingham and Pontiac were longtime prep football, basketball and baseball rivals for many years until the early 1960s.

The Chiefs shouldn't be forgotten as soon as the horn went silent to end their final game. Remember the battles that Pontiac High and later, Pontiac Central played that made your heart throb. Remember the Friday nights they made so memorable in so many different seasons. Remember the simetaneous hope and heartache they represented in Pontiac for so many years. Remember the Russell brothers. Remember Bill Glover, who was the heart and soul of Central for so many years.

Remember the Chiefs.

(Picture courtesy The Oakland Press/Feb. 1971/Rolf Winter)

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

I'm at the Barnes & Noble on Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Hills, starting at 6 p.m., to sign copies of my book, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries.

I'll give a FREE BOOK to the first five people who can tell me the correct answer to either of the following questions:

1. What Detroit-area high school did Brother Rice coach Al Fracassa coach at before he took over the Warrior sideline?

2. What now-closed Detroit-area high school team did George Perles command before he went to the Pittsburgh Steelers and later, Michigan State?

It's almost gift-giving season and nothing says, 'I have the holiday spirit!' like a football book about rivalries, the long-standing role prep football has played in our metropolitan communities, the games that have withstood the test of time and the great theater that is prep football.

Long live high school football!

DSBA: In other news, the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association (DSBA) took a flyer on my Friday post and ran with it for their site as a review of the media luncheon they hosted for the Michigan - Michigan State game on Tuesday afternoon. It all went down at Ginopolis Restaurant in Farmington Hills at Twelve Mile and Middlebelt Road.

You can read the entire post of the Paul Bunyan Game throwdown here, or wait to read the post Friday here!

It's official -- I've been tendered a contract from Arcadia Publishing to write a follow-up to the football book from this fall. The title, not suprisingly, will be called Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries.

There are a couple significant changes since Martin Luther King Day of this year, when offer and acceptance of the football book contract came and went in the blink of an eye. First, I'm now represented by an agent, Terry Whalin of The Whalin Literary Agency. Terry handles a couple of different, unrelated projects for me, served as an excellent contributor for the blogging panel I moderated in NYC this past April ( check out Terry's blog at The Writing Life) and therefore is a natural fit to represent me for this title, too.

The other change is two-fold. I was a never-published author nine months ago. Since then I've been published, the football book has been successful (a couple hiccups aside), my blog is syndicated and I'm better prepared for what to expect, having done it once before on a truncated time table. I wrote the football book in 45 days. Yes, that's 45 days to write 18,000-20,000 words, come up with 200 original images and lay it out, too. This time I'll have 135 days to finish the title and won't have to worry about a divorce attorney knocking on my front door.

I'm also thrilled to be working with Arcadia again. America is chock full of interesting history and metro Detroit is home to so much of the rich fabric that blankets our country's past. Thankfully Arcadia is a publisher dedicated to telling that story.

Fordson-Southgate Anderson: Mick McCabe wrote a nice piece in this morning's Freep about the Fordson-Anderson game last night that gave the Tractors the Mega Red Championship with a 36-21 win. Plenty of the Tractor tradition and a nice quote of Charlie Jestice, too.

Upcoming Events: I'll be at the Barnes & Noble in Bloomfield Hills on Telegraph Road at 6pm on Thursday, October 23rd. On Saturday, December 13th, I'll be at the Border's Express inside Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi from 2-4pm. Come check it out!

Talking Turkey & Helping The Kids: My football book, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, will be on sale at Ford Field during the MHSAA's championship rounds of the 2008 football tournament. Three dollars (that's $3 to you and me) of every book sold will benefit Officials For Kids, the charitable arm of the MHSAA's corp of registered officials.

You can find the book at the MHSAA's vendor, Lighthouse Sportswear, who travel down from Grand Ledge. Thanks to John Johnson, Communications Director of the MHSAA and Tim Pendell, Senior Director of Community Affiars for the Detroit Lions.

Show your holiday spirit (the book makes a great gift, Mom!) and do something for those who need you the most. I harken to the phrase of rally used to promote the defunct Goodfellows Game played between the Catholic League and Detroit Public School League champions on Thanksgiving Day at Tiger Stadium.

No Child Forgotten. Watch some great football, buy a book and help the cause.

Not A Hater: I earned some healthy feedback from Thursday's post and most of it came from those who think I dislike Royal Oak HS. Far from it. I simply offered the opinion that time, money and a lot of sweat-equity was poured into an unknown brand for reasons I'm not certain best served the Royal Oak school district. Kimball was a known brand. You never had to ask a Kimball team to hit, never had to ask them to work and therefore had a level of expectation that many schools strive for.

If you think that's far-fetched, consider sending your daughter to Birmingham Marian. If she wants to play basketball, you're dealing with a known brand. The same goes for Brother Rice football and Al Fracassa, Troy Athens soccer and Tim Storch and Clarkston basketball and Dan Fife.

Today, when the rubber meets the road, there's just two years of history to draw on instead of 50 years of tradition that was well-publicized on the Kimball walls, vanquished to memory in 2006 at the hands of sandblasters and bulldozers.

Unfortunately for the Royal Oak faithful, the Ravens dropped another not-so-close contest last night to Birmingham Groves, 49-12. The game was the 146th time that a Royal Oak public school (RO Acrons, Kimball, Dondero, RO Ravens) faced a Birmingham public school (Birmingham Maples, Seaholm, Groves). It was just an opinion offered about Royal Oak's recent football struggles. From all accounts the Ravens have played hard, but unfortunately, simply playing hard doesn't win football games.

~ T. C. Cameron is a three-sport referee and writer who is scheduled to produce Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries for publication in 2009 from Arcadia Publishing.

Last week I umpired a Catholic League doubleheader between visiting Orchard Lake St. Mary's and Birmingham Brother Rice, played behind the Birmingham YMCA Center. Rice took a pair of victories from the Eaglets, who are rich with young talent but not yet blessed with the depth and experience that befitted Coach Bob Riker's Warriors last week. Orchard Lake St. Mary's will be ready when it counts, because they usually always are and are led by good coaches.

In researching my book, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, due August 25th of this year, I interviewed hundreds involved on a daily basis within Oakland County's high school sports infrastructure. Naturally, a few good-hearted souls took up the cause to lament the Catholic League's advantage of plucking students from public school boundaries for the betterment of wins and losses in after-school athletics.

I listened and did my job as the dutiful reporter, but a couple of points stuck out to me. First, does anyone else notice that it's never the 0-9 football team that is complained about, just the playoff qualifier from a private school like Rice or Detroit Country Day? Naturally, this is a bit hypocritical, and no public school ever complains about their fate when their team's results are average or worse. Many public districts are openly courting students in today's open-district, open-enrollment, school-of-choice fight for survival. Michigan's economic woes have created a virtual free-for-all within competing districts and private institutions.

But the other point makes me proud to be from Oakland County. Just how lucky are we to be in this county to have so many outstanding public and private schools in one square swath of land called Oakland County? Think about it -- most counties would love to have just one private school the caliber of Novi's Catholic Central, Royal Oak's Shrine High, Madison Heights Bishop Foley or Waterford's Our Lady Of The Lakes, in addition to the aforementioned private schools above. Certainly space prevents me listing all of the worthy candidates on either side.

Then you have tony districts like Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills and Troy. Clarkston, Lake Orion and Oxford are all immaculately maintained with highest standards for achievement and opportunity. The same can be said in Walled Lake, Novi, Northville, Rochester, South Lyon and many other Oakland County public school districts. How many Oakland County schools have played for and won the MHSAA"s football tournament? Last season Farmington and Lake Orion staged perhaps one of the greatest baseball finals in the state's biggest division and it was just the latest example of an Oakland County school shining brightly on the state's big stage.

I could write an entire column on the academic achievements of Oakland County schools in our state and national scope. And yes, Wayne and Macomb counties would argue they have some strong entries into this debate as well.

We get caught up in winning and losing in our hyperactive, American culture -- it's in our blood, I suppose. And yes, I'm doing a bit of cheerleading, but maybe that's what we need in Michigan right now. There hasn't been a lot of good news in the past few years as it relates to the issues that matter most in our region. So it's nice to drive home from a hotly-contested game and realize that competition we stage and officiate produces the opportunity to excel against the best the county has to offer.

As a parent, that's what any parent wants for their children, to be able to offer then the opportunity to get to the highest level of competition and achievement. Oakland County certainly affords a parent or student those opportunities. This alone should make everyone worry less about balls & strikes and safes & outs.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, due August 25th, 2008 from Arcadia Publishing.