Southern exposure

Nick Christensen

Friday, Dec. 3, 2004 | 8:52 a.m.

For at least 50 years, one thing in high school football was certain -- a Northern team would face a Southern team for the large-school championship.

Of course, back in the Olden Days, there wasn't exactly a surplus of large schools to contend for that championship. Although there are no records, it's believed that Reno and Sparks high schools were the only large schools in Truckee Meadows, and up until Rancho's opening in 1954, Las Vegas was the only large school in Southern Nevada.

Since those days when Las Vegas had 50,000 people, Reno and Sparks combined for 50,000 people, and the rest of the state had, well, 50,000 people, the format has been the same -- the North and South met at the end of the football season for the championship. It worked well for a long time -- the North had anywhere between seven and 11 3A schools, and Las Vegas had up to 10 of its own until the building boom began in the late 1980s. Since 1992, Clark County has added 17 high schools, all at the large school level, while Washoe County added four.

In 2000, the Southern Zone split into two regions, with one region getting two teams in the state title game on a rotating basis. That first year, the Northern Region got two teams in state -- McQueen and Wooster. They both won, and for the first time since 1930, Southern Nevada was shut out of the title game.

Oddly enough, Southern teams weren't able to break through in the three years they had the three-on-one advantage. It wasn't until this year, when the North's runner-up cycled back to be the "lucky dog" of high school football, that the first all-South final was achieved.

In other sports, the all-South final wasn't too uncommon, said Royce Feour, a veteran local sports writer and editor.

"I remember in the days of state basketball, in the 1960s and 1970s, invariably you'd have four Northern teams qualify and four Southern, and the South would sweep all four games of a three-day state tournament," Feour said.

But the path was clear in football, he said.

"Las Vegas would play Reno in a regular scheduled game and it would generally be late in the year, and that would be the state championship game," Feour said.

Bishop Manogue coach Joe Sellers, whose 243 career coaching victories in 28 years makes him the winningest coach in state history, says he knows the days of a guaranteed North-South championship are done.

"The format is what it is," he said. "If there was a way of having one team from the North and one from the South, you've got twice as many teams down south. That's probably not fair down south."

The format causes other problems, particularly with the scenario that unfolded in 2000, when Wooster lost handily to McQueen in the regular season, then again in the Northern final.

"When Wooster lost in their regional finals in 2000 and came down and played Gorman, they didn't want to come," said Dr. Jerry Hughes, the director of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association. "They said this is ridiculous, now we have to prepare for a game after we've lost. That's changed. McQueen was not disappointed they got another chance.

"The way that is, whenever Vegas gets that fourth region, you'll lose that second-place thing."

Feour said that there's not too much that can be taken from this first all-South football title.