Writing a book about high school football was an eye-opening experience on many fronts. It's created a small buzz within the prep football community, and everyone seems to have an opinion. I've tentatively decided to file that under the "all news is good news' category.

Yesterday I was yakking on the phone with Marc Secontine, owner of The Varsity Shop in downtown Birmingham, Michigan. Secontine's father, Vince, was the coach of the Birmingham High School Maples in the 1950s. For those that don't know, Birmingham High became Birmingham Seaholm. Secontine's also related to Birmingham Brother Rice football coach Al Fracassa.

Here's where the story gets good. Fracassa and I bumped into each other while I was walking out and he was waling into Eastern Michigan University's Rynearson Stadium. Naturally I shared the book with Coach Fracassa. His wife saw the copy I handed to Al and bought a copy for Secontine and had Al sign it for Marc. Little did she know that Secontine had purchased 20 copies from Arcadia Publishing directly to sell in his store.

The Varsity Shop has produced a table banner that will be making it's debut soon at a number of signings. It's this kind of enthusiasm for the book that warms my heart and tells me that, no matter the opinion of my book or my ability as a writer (or official for the matter), high school football is an important part of the community spirit in metro Detroit.

Library Event Nets Coach & Stories: This past Wednesday in Royal Oak I was fortunate to host a signing at Royal Oak's Public Library. Among the attendees were former Royal Oak Kimball HS/Royal Oak HS coach Terry Powers. Among his comments from Wednesday:

"We had good kids to pull from in Royal Oak, and I never had to ask my kids at Kimball to hit. That's one of the things about our teams that makes me proud. Win or lose you knew you had played Kimball."

Powers also talked about being hired at Kimball as it relates to the old Kimball-Dondero rivalry and what it was like to follow a legend.

"When I was hired the program was down, but it was made clear to me, 'That's the game you win, that Dondero game', and there was no two ways about it. I remember hearing the story about (Coach) Paul Temerian saying he was going to retire at the end of the 1982 season, but Dondero beat Kimball 35-0 (in the Silverdome). After the game he told Chuck Jones that he would coach another year -- that's a rivalry, making you stay another year so you don't go out like that against a rival."

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, available at retailers everywhere.

Among a few thousand fans at Eastern Michigan University's Rynearson Stadium, the Lions of South Lyon High School outran the Vikings of Walled Lake Central High by a 20-9 count in the first of four games that began at 11 a.m. yesterday as part of the Big Day Prep Showdown IV presented by Comcast Television.

But if you're truly counting winners, eight players stood out from the rest.

The big winners were the two recipients of a $500 scholarship presented in each of the four games by the Detroit Metro Sports Commission (DMSC). Eight players representing the eight participating schools earned a scholarship award. Representing Oakland County was Walled Lake Central's Cory Davis and South Lyon's Joesph Powell, and later in the day, Lake Orion's Aaron Gill was announced as the Dragons' scholarship recipient like Davis and Powell had been during halftime of their game.

DMSC Chairman Robert Porcher, a former Detroit Lion who ruled the defensive line for several seasons wearing the Honolulu Blue and Silver, said "The vision for the event is to celebrate not only football, but to acknowledge the tremendous academic and civic accomplishments of students from the participating schools who excel in their own pursuits."

It's likely most of the athletes playing or cheering on Rynearson's floor in yesterday's four games at EMU will never cheer or play football past high school. Of the lucky few to participate in college, maybe one player will ever have more than a pipe dream of playing in the National Football League (NFL) like Porcher did. So the DMSC, with the statistical knowledge of these chances at pro stardom, gave the schools participating in yesterday's games complete autonomy to pick the winner, and encouraged the schools to use a formula of civic responsibility, school pride and academic achievement and need to determine a winner.

In short, it was about who represents Lake Orion, South Lyon and Walled Lake Central the best that mattered most, not who had the most tackles, who ran the fastest 40-yard dash or who could throw the tightest spiral. Who wore the school colors with the most pride and dignity? Who helped improve their community? Who could combine the words 'student' with 'athlete' with the most proficiency?

In Oakland County, some of our area school's athletic departments can look like a beachfront, with each wave of kids looking like a never-ending crash of water, one after another, one class of kids after another, year after year. The names, records and sports start can easily start to meld together in a blur.

It's really all about providing opportunity to the entire student body, and taking time to recognize the outstanding contributions of the student-athletes that strive to embody the true ideals within the term 'student-athlete' is, in my humble opinion, one of the very best parts of school sports.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, now available at all major retailers