The marquee matchup in Sunday's Catholic League championship was a cross-county pairing that 50 years ago could have been the stunt double for the city's public school East & West divisions.

De LaSalle outlasted Catholic Central by a 51-44 count to earn their first Catholic League crown since the 2001-02 season. Both schools used to be Catholic mainstays in the Detroit proper, but like so many other things, while the city has hollowed out, the suburbs have flourished and today's Catholic League is best represented in the 'burbs.

Five decades ago, it would have been unfathomable to image a De LaSalle - Catholic Central having an Oakland - Macomb edge to it, but as unimaginable as that might have been, that the Catholic League finals would be played without a full house is equally shocking.

Of course, it has nothing to do with the game being better or worse, or the economy. High school sports simply don't command the same crowds they used to. That's an across the board statement that applies at public and private schools, big and small, in affluent and working class communities alike.

De LaSalle's win means the Pilots will play the role of underdog in the upcoming Operation Friendship championship game this upcoming Saturday at Cass Tech High. De LaSalle will play the top-ranked Pershing Doughboys, while runner-up C.C. will face Southeastern's Jungaleers.

SCORE CONTROVERSY? Many members of the working press had recorded the final score as 51-44 when the final buzzer sounded in the A-B Division championship. The final was announced as 52-44 and never changed during the trophy presentations. Catholic Central's book, the Catholic League's official book and De LaSalle scorekeeper Mike Szatkowski concurred on the official tally of 51 points for De LaSalle.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, released August 2008 from Arcadia Publishing. Cameron's 2nd title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries features the compelling stories from 60 years of Oakland County games and will be available in August of this year.

The Catholic League's annual boys' basketball championships are being played at University of Detroit-Mercy's Calihan Hall today.

Oakland County resident Mike Birkett, who grew up in Royal Oak and attended Madison Heights Bishop Foley, was the Referee for Sunday's first championship game. That game, for the C-D bracket title, features Ann Arbor's Gabriel Richard High and Detroit Loyola High, a school that's been open for a little more than 10 years.

The second tilt pits Novi's Catholic Central versus Warren's DeLaSalle High in a throwback game to the days of the Catholic League's heady Detroit days.

All of the three officials have at least one strong tie to Oakland County. Mike Lombard is a graduate of now-closed Royal Oak Dondero High, Wallace Whitfield is a current Oakland County resident and Don Vogt is the principal of Hazel Park High School.

There was a day when Catholic Central and De LaSalle would have represented an eastside-westside matchup as well as any of the Detroit public schools. The Shamrocks were formerly parked out on Outer Drive on the site of Renaissance High. De LaSalle's Pilots earned their name for the school's close proximity to Detroit's City Airport. De LaSalle vacated their old campus off of Conner in the early 1980s.

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

Eight months ago, I wrote within this blog's space about change. I watched change take place as a college student when Eastern Michigan University unceremoniously ditched their Huron identity in 1990-1991. Change is messy and sometimes, not for the best.

So when Royal Oak dismantled it's prep sports legacy brick-by-brick starting in 2005 by combining Kimball and Dondero High, I wondered what the aftermath might leave in the immediate years to come. It was a costly, controversial decision that embittered both school cultures. The Detroit News described the two schools as historic rivals when the paper wrote a recap of the first merged year as Royal Oak High.

I think I may have an answer.

Royal Oak High School is 0-7 in the current football season. The Ravens have been close in one game, but the others? Monumental blowouts, and with two games remaining, Royal Oak's gridders have just two more chances to avoid the first winless season in the history of the city's high school at 1500 Lexington. Royal Oak has new uniforms, new colors, new coaches and new field turf but there's something missing. There's no tradition, because the past two seasons were teams made up mostly of the remaining Kimball players coached by the former Kimball coach, Terry Powers. Powers told me during the first year of the combined school (2006), 21 of the 22 starters were Kimball players. That team went 8-3 and won the district playoff opener.

Many newspapers still referred to the Ravens in those first couple years as Kimball. There was a lot of Kimball tradition and just because it was pulled off the walls, it doesn't die in the memories and minds of prep sports fans. Just like Renaissance was still Catholic Central for many years, and the De LaSalle Pilots were still from their old campus off Connor.

I know football is just a game among many different sports at the area high schools, but it's important to have a good football team in Royal Oak, just like it's part of the culture at Pershing, Fordson, King, John Glenn, Harrison and Allen Park. I watched Kimball suffer it's first losing season after 27-straight seasons without a losing ledger starting in 1984 as a high school freshman and it set an ugly tenor for our four years. Three years later, the district plucked Powers from Detroit Catholic Central to mold the Kimball program as the Shamrocks were built. There was a palpable spirit at Kimball and having a good football team was an important part of the building's culture for the 49 years it was open.

The other day I was in Royal Oak to get my haircut at, ironically enough, the Kimball Barbershop. One my way I drove past Royal Oak's football field where the signature blue n' gold K has been missing for three years. As I passed the baseball field, there was a gold, block-letter "K" hand-painted onto the dugout facing Normandy. On the other side of the building, the school's signature rock was slathered in gold with blue letters reading "KHS ROCKS".

I've talked to several familiar with the culture in the former Kimball building. There's a bit of a rebellion going on. Last winter the old Kimball gear started to show up. First it was a shirt or two, then a varsity jacket, and then a few more noticeable references. It's lead to dissension. This is possibly the bitter aftermath of tearing the district schools' good names to their foundations and combining two distinct cultures.

Good memories die hard. Change doesn't guarantee continued success.

Polar Bears Are Back! Less than a week after declaring the season over at Highland Park, head coach Cedric Dortch said yesterday in Detroit Free Press that the season will go forward for the final two games. This week the Polar Bears will face the rising Phoenix of Ypsilanti High, followed with a season-ending battle with top-ranked Dearborn Fordson.

The Parkers will have to win both games to qualify for the playoffs, as does Ypsilanti, so for all intents, this is the season for Highland Park. Even if they win Friday versus Ypsilanti, the monumental task of toppling the Tractors in Week Nine awaits. Fordson is preparing this week for the game of the year in metro Detroit, as Southgate Anderson and Fordson will meet tomorrow night for the final MEGA Red championship.

Speaking universally, this is a good move by Coach Dortch. That would have been an inglorious way to end a season and with his school and many others looking for a new place to park their athletic fortunes when the MEGA disbands this upcoming spring, people need to know Highland Park won't throw in the towel.

Two years ago Highland Park signed a contract to go play the Howell Highlanders in Howell. It was something I took notice of immediately when the prep football schedules were released. It took a lot of guts to agree to put his kids on a bus and go to a place that hasn't always been associated with, shall we say, tolerance. Howell is working hard to break that image and Highland Park is working hard to rebuild the honor and pride that used to be signature staples of the school's athletic department. Playing the rest of the season is another step in that direction.

Harrison A Victim Of An SI-Like Jinx? Two weeks ago Farmington Hills Harrison lost a 20-19 heartbreaker to Farmington High, the first time in 31 years the Falcons escaped the clutches of the Hawks. The last time that happened? 1977, when Farmington defeated the defending state finalists by an identical 20-19 count.

What's on the front cover of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries? A picture from that 1977 Harrison-Farmington game, with the same score and result of the game played this year.

What are the odds of that?

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, and is working on a follow-up title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries!