Come see me tomorrow afternoon in Novi's Twelve Oaks Mall at the Borders Express bookstore from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

I'll be signing copies of my book, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, and talking football,and a little basketball, too, as you finish your Christmas shopping. It's a great opportunity to get a great gift before the 25th is here!

Later in the evening, I'll be officiating at Royal Oak Shrine's inaugural boys' basketball game at their brand new basketball facility. The Knights will be facing their neighbors to the east, Royal Oak High, a school that used to host some of the bigger Shrine games in both football and basketball when it was better known as Royal Oak Kimball High.

Perhaps no school has needed a new gym more than Shrine, with it's cramped corners that didn't allow for three-point shots and a slew of other inconveniences. However, there's a ton of Catholic League history in that old, cramped barn and the old lady was witness to literally hundreds of old-fashioned Michigan barn-burners over the years. As we welcome the new, we bid adieu to the old, too.

Finally, the rumors continue to fly about The Detroit News & Detroit Free Press editorial staffs suffering greatly due to the economy, the lethargic newspaper climate and the need to shelve the old media platform for today's new, electronically-generated mediums. Yesterday chat rooms and e-mail threads buzzed with news that as many as 300 staffers could be axed from newsrooms and editorial staffs at Detroit's dailies. That and the possibility of the dailies only printing a hard copy on Friday, Saturday and Sundays.

The truth is Detroit's no longer a two-paper town, and it hasn't been for some time. It wasn't a three-paper town nearly 60 years ago when the The Detroit Times folded. If that sounds harsh, book a flight to Hartford, Connecticut and take the Amtrak into New York's Penn Station. You'll be amazed at how many papers are available on the platform of the commuter trains and how thick they are. It literally takes all two hours to get the daily paper digested on your way into the city, and it's like this in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. In Detroit you can race through our papers in 15-20 scant minutes.

That's not to say the writing is poor or the content isn't worthy. It simply means Detroit's newsworthy footprint doesn't match the available advertising resources for revenue to justify a two-paper system.

One aspect I'm optimistic about is a boost in available assignments for freelancers like myself if the online platform goes forward in full. The current hard copy production model is expensive and severely limits cash flow. An online edition, especially an exclusively online platform, would free up a lot of needed liquidity. The catch is the advertising revenue and how to effectively trigger an effective advertising model.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, and his syndicated blog is found exclusively at www.MIPrepZone.com!

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.