Pontiac Central High is closing in what's become the worst-kept secret since Major League Baseball's strike of 1994. Schools come and go all the time, but Central is more than a come-and-go school.

Pontiac Central is Pontiac's heritage, history and heartbeat. The school's nickname of Chiefs honors the city's namesake, Chief Pontiac. The school's colors of black and orange are as time-honored in prep circles, in some respects, as Michigan's maize n' blue. Finally, consider Central's premiere basketball history. Certainly city rival Pontiac Northern would stake a claim in any supremacy argument but the Huskies aside, what Oakland County school not named Country Day can make such a boastful claim?

Pontiac's public school leadership has a scant eight months to avoid the mistakes Royal Oak made, mistakes it had three years to overcome. When Royal Oak announced in 2004 that Kimball and Dondero, described by The Detroit News as 'historic rivals', would merge as one high school in 2006, a war of cultures ensued. The Dondero contingent, heartbroken their school would shutter in favor of hated Kimball, embarked to destroy the cultures at both schools, ensuring Kimball's legacy died, too. The 'new' Royal Oak High, with new nickname, school colors and traditions, hasn't overcome the legacy of its' former Kimball name.

The Royal Oak rivalry had been dead for years because Kimball dominated the final 15 scholastic seasons, but instead of making the combined school colors blue, gold and white or hanging banners from each former school in the new school, Royal Oak choose to bury their prep sports history of the past 100 years.

Central and Northern in basketball was very much like Kimball and Dondero for 35 years in football. Do you think the kids in Pontiac will have more than a few verbal and physical battles over their former school's legacy? Let's hope the 'new' Pontiac High School represents the contributions from each former school instead of shuttering their considerable past, as was done in Royal Oak.

FIGHT NOT RIGHT: Birmingham Seaholm's 69-46 win at Ferndale last week was marred by an ugly fight that prematurely ended the contest. Game officials declared the contest complete with 6:45 remaining in the fourth quarter after fans not representing the participating schools commenced a fistfight in the bleachers and risers that spilled onto the court, says Ferndale Athletic Director Shaun Butler.

"This was the result of non-students from either school -- it was not a problem between students of Ferndale or Seaholm," said Butler, who declined further comment except to say only Ferndale students with current, valid student identification cards will be admitted into Ferndale home games for the remainder of the season. There's a long history of good relations between both schools for over 50 years since Ferndale opened in 1958 to replace outdated Lincoln High. Birmingham High was remaned Seaholm in the early 1960s. The two cities paired their public schools against one another in all sports for over 80 years.

Butler and Seaholm athletic director Aaron Frank have plenty of experience hosting marquee events that will draw larger-than-usual crowds for prep sports. Ferndale has annually hosted one of the most prominent MHSAA boys' basketball quarterfinals in the history of the Class A or Division 1 bracket, and Seaholm has hosted one of the biggest quarterfinals in baseball, as well as some of the biggest prep football games in metro Detroit's history.

It's safe to say neither of these men are candidates to fall asleep at the wheel in their duties of stewarding their school's athletic department. The perpetrators of this fight have only hurt themselves and prep fans around them who don't have family-related interest in Ferndale's basketball team, and that benefits no one.

RIVALRY REPORT: Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries might not have changed much in the present except improving memories of prep football's past, but I can say I've noticed a slight change my book may have cultured.

Most metro newspapers big and small now make a concerted effort to highlight the rivalry games between inter-city schools, league foes and tournament tilts, even in the roundup, agate-like listings. While I would never be so bold to claim anything more, I'm proud that my book, in an innocuous way, brought a bit more cache and attention to prep rivalries in metro Detroit.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries from Arcadia Publishing. Cameron's 2nd title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, is due August 2009.

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.