ProfessorBriggs.com

PROFESSOR'S PROVERBS -- AUGUST 5, 2016

It's been a while since I have written anything for ProfessorBriggs.com, approximately five months since high school basketball season wrapped up. In recent weeks, I have added the Mercer County area high school football schedules for this season as well as the District 10 football standings. Hopefully, it can be a useful resource for people throughout the fall.

I'll look to add other links to them as the season progresses, such as box scores, recaps, previews and related information.

I have recently modified the look of the web site to give it a cleaner and maybe even a bit more of a "mature" look. After close to 15 years, it's time to use a different font other than Comic Sans.

Speaking of 15 years, this October is the 15th anniversary of the launch of ProfessorBriggs.com. If you're wondering what the original layout looked like, click here. A lot has changed since 2001, both personally and professionally. When I launched the site, I was only a few months out of college and working as sports editor of Allied News while also doing some work for The Herald.

Additionally, I did some occasional work for 790 WPIC, WWIZ 103.9 and WLLF 96.7. I moved to Grove City College in June 2002 and got a little more involved with the radio stations. Some of you may remember that I hosted the pre- and post-game shows in football season in 2002. In 2003, someone else came to power at The Radio Center and I became pretty much persona non grata due to that party's efforts. Eventually, that party "got the gate," and I was able to work my way back into the lineup over the course of a few years.

When the site began, I'm not sure what my original intent really was. I think I wanted it to be kind of a news/opinion medium and possibly a means to promote myself as a "local personality." The site kind of waned in the mid-2000s, and has been hot and cold for the last handful of years. As many of you know, "life" sometimes gets in the way of things.

Hopefully, I'll do a better job of keeping the site updated this fall and into winter. I also aim to have basketball standings, etc., come winter time.

It's hard for me to believe that I'm now in my 15th year as sports information director at Grove City College. I amazed at the technological advances that the sports information field has developed since then. The biggest one, of course, is not having to do everything in the office at night and on weekends because I need to: a) get online; and b) FAX releases to various media outlets.

Social media is such a huge factor also now -- it really rivals the Internet as a news/information source. No doubt that social media will continue to grow in coming years. It has its place certainly, but too often, it's used as a platform simply for people to gripe and whine in an uninformed manner. The Internet and social media provide people an easily-accessible medium for displaying their ignorance.

> In upcoming days, the local scholastic fall sports teams will begin their preseason camps. A big change, of course, is the expansion of classes in many sports. Football has gotten a lot of the attention as it is the sport that seemingly spawned this development. Some people are already panning the move without a single game or match having been played, simply because it's "different." Let's see how things play out over the next two years before starting to cast judgment on the decision.

I didn't think a move really needed to be made. It seemed to be a "Let's Create a Problem So We Can Solve It and Make Ourselves Look Good"-type of situation. The die has been cast, though, so it may work out to be great. It could also be a bigger bomb than the Sandra Bullock movie, "Our Brand Is Crisis". The appropriate thing is to allow the system to be executed fully and then evaluate it.

My bigger complaint is that this class expansion is playoff-driven. Sure, teams want to compete for championships and qualify for postseason play. That being said, in every sport, postseason games/matches comprise a small portion of a team's schedule. Yet, those one or two games (or maybe a few more for very good teams) are dictating who teams play in the regular season. It's a classic case of the Tail Wagging The Dog. The objectives and planning of high school sports should not be centered solely on winning state championships! 

> One immediate byproduct of the new system is that nine of the 12 Mercer County high school football programs are in the same conference together, which means that we will have great local matchups every week this fall. To my knowledge, a nine-team conference of local teams is the largest one that we've ever had. In the early 1990s, we had the Mercer County Athletic Conference Big School (Grove City, Hickory, Reynolds, Sharon, Slippery Rock) and Small School (Kennedy, Mercer, Sharpsville, West Middlesex) divisions. In those days, Lakeview played in the French Creek Valley Conference, Greenville competed in the Northwest Conference, while Farrell and Wilmington belonged to District 7.

The Week One schedule locally is overflowing with fascinating matchups. Greenville and Hickory have had many classic games in recent yore and they'll meet on opening night in Hermitage. This fall is the 20th anniversary of the famous Wilmington-Sharon winner-take-all game; those two storied programs will play in Week One.

Lakeview and Mercer have developed a very nice rivalry over the past decade and the 2016 renewal will come August 26. For the first time in probably three decades (if not longer), Sharpsville and West Middlesex will play as non-conference foes that night. Reynolds and Slippery Rock have only played sporadically in recent  years but are reunited in Region 2 this year. The teams haven't played since meeting during the 2008 and 2009 seasons (both games won by Slippery Rock). Reynolds' last win over SRHS came in 2005 by the unusual score of 15-2.

Grove City hosts General McLane in what could be a possible playoff preview between two 5A squads. It's definitely a stiff test in the opener for Grove City. Finally, on Saturday the 27th, Farrell will face Neshannock at New Castle's Taggart Stadium. Farrell and Neshannock were rivals for many years in District 7's Tri-County North A, which later evolved into the Big Seven.

> The Presidents' Athletic Conference held its annual Media Day in Latrobe this past Wednesday and it was another very successful and well-run event by the league. I was honored to be able to compile the preseason poll. Five teams received at least one first-place vote and a strong case can be made for all five to be picked in the top spot.

> As the month goes on, I'll be adding some more football-related stuff, some fun things such as lists, etc. I may even include a few non-sports things at the end as a change of pace.

Keep the cards and letters coming to ryanbriggs@zoominternet.net. Follow me on Twitter @professorbriggs