The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RCN or any other agency, organization, employer or company.
First of all, thanks to all of last week’s “SportsTalk” guests…even with Keith Groller on another assignment, we had no shortage of big-named personalities on our program.
For our Pennsylvania sports fans, District XI Football Chair Jason Zimmerman joined me in-studio and discussed the changes with the district’s playoff system and other rule changes for high school football. “Zim” also gave our audience a great overview of the local playoff races and insights on many of the teams in the RCN-TV coverage area.
For sports fans in the Washington DC area…we had interviews featuring players and coaches from the 8-0 HD Woodson football team. Woodson is tied with several of the other top teams in the DMV for first in the 6A divisional playoff race.
Then, following our live preview from the Meadowlands which covered that evening’s Giants/Eagles game, we also chatted with Mt. Vernon Head Football Coach Monty Fritts about the amazing job he’s done turning around his program. Coach Fritts took over a team that had gone 3-26 in the three years prior to his taking over the helm and has guided the Majors to an 18-9 record so far during his tenure.
He reported that the team he took over had just 37 students on the roster and they didn’t even have money to buy new uniforms that were badly needed. The team hadn’t had consistent, sustained success in decades. Fritts reported players would be ashamed to wear their “MV” lettermen jackets in public and that the football program was frequently the target of jokes in the community because of its futility.
Now, he has over 120 students competing for spots. He has players at or near the top in a number of key statistical categories. His team has broken 31 school records over the last two years and, should their success continue this fall, it would be just the second time in school history that his school made the playoffs in three consecutive seasons (the first time was in the 1930s). His turnaround story is one of the most dramatic in the entire nation.
All of these “SportsTalk” interviews are available through RCN On-Demand and via our podcasts found here on the RCN-TV website.
It’s time for this week’s edition of our high school football polls for teams in the District XI region…
“Big” Schools Poll
1) Freedom
2) Emmaus
3) Parkland
4) Stroudsburg
5) Easton
“Small” School Poll
2) Notre Dame
3) Northwestern
Our poll remains with the same structure that we’ve utilized for many seasons. We take the 400-male enrollment number as the cutoff for schools within the District XI/RCN-TV broadcast area. All of the schools above that number qualify as “big schools” in our poll. These schools consist of Parkland, Liberty, Allen, Easton, Emmaus, Liberty, Dieruff, Pocono Mountain West, Freedom, Stroudsburg, Pleasant Valley, Northampton, Nazareth, Whitehall, Southern Lehigh, East Stroudsburg-South, and Pocono Mountain East. The five schools receiving the most votes are listed above.
“Small schools” (below 400-male enrollment) consist of both Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and Colonial League teams — Bangor, Saucon Valley, Central Catholic, Bethlehem Catholic, Northwestern, Wilson, Palisades, Palmerton, Salisbury, Notre Dame, Pen Argyl, Northern Lehigh and Catasauqua. The top four vote-getters are named.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have much diversity in this week’s “Pick 4” contest…
| The “PICK 4” |
Liberty vs. Whitehall | Emmaus vs. Bethlehem Catholic | Salisbury vs. Palmerton | Saucon Valley vs. Notre Dame |
| Gary Laubach | Liberty | Bethlehem Catholic | Palmerton | Notre Dame |
| Tony Cocca | Liberty | Bethlehem Catholic | Salisbury | Notre Dame |
| Keith Groller | Liberty | Bethlehem Catholic | Palmerton | Notre Dame |
| Chris Michael | Liberty | Bethlehem Catholic | Palmerton | Notre Dame |
Check back next week here at “The Shop” for more high school football notes, polls, video highlights and predictions.
