[media-credit name=’BRYAN FAUST/Herald Photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]Have you ever wondered why some of the simplest games are the most fun and enduring? How a game of cribbage — a game meant to help young children learn basic arithmetic — can become more heated than a Roger Clemens-Mike Piazza matchup? Or how Tecmo Super Bowl is still somehow the greatest football game ever created (just ask any of the Herald Sports staff), after almost 15 years of platform upgrades, graphic upgrades and audio upgrades (yet oddly enough, no upgrades to the expressions that John Madden uses in his games).

No matter how fantastically realistic new video games become or how complex and engaging EverQuest and Dungeons and Dragons are (if you are a dweebus maximus, that is), there will always be a place in the world for games like Tecmo Super Bowl and cribbage.

The same can be said for high school football.

The NFL, while by far the most entertaining and successful professional sports league, lacks the emotion that is such an essential part of what football at its core really is. While the players play hard and the spotlight is as glaring as any in all of sports, the NFL really is cold. The stadiums are very high tech and customer friendly, but are also very antiseptic, with many bearing a closer resemblance to a sparkling dentist's office than the monuments of school spirit found at the collegiate level.

College sports, especially football, are best described in two words: pride and pageantry. The players often are just happy to be on the field in front of fans that roar much louder than any in the NFL, and they play for their school, not money. It is often referred to as pure.

Sadly, that is not always the case, as recruiting violations, boosters handing over money to athletes and the plethora of players leaving school early for the NFL make the college game, while more emotional than its big brother, still way too commercial to be considered pure. Just look at the recent rule changes to attempt to make the college game more similar to the pro-style one.

In the end, college teams pick the best of the best from the high school level to join the show, much like the NFL takes its pick of the collegiate litter to join their company.

My high school didn't field a football team, and I had only been to a couple of prep-level football games during my high school years, usually involving my brother's school or the all-boys school next door, so there was always some kind of affiliation.

However, two weeks ago, I was in a Cleveland suburb for a contest between the Cuyahoga Heights Redskins and the Rhodes High School Rams at quaint little Ralph Adams Stadium, dug into the ground and home field to the 'Skins, a Division-VI (the smallest division, ordered by school population) powerhouse.

Technically, I had blood ties to the Redskins, as my cousin's husband was a coach on the team. But since I hadn't spoken to my cousin in over 15 years, for all intents and purposes I was an unbiased spectator.

To me, the game was little more than Red (Cuyahoga) vs. Blue (Rhodes), and boy, was it spectacular.

The crowd of no more than 3,000 was boisterous and always supportive, filling the single-bleacher stand that stretched from 20-yard-line to 20-yard-line. Sitting 15 rows up in the bleachers on the right side of the press box, at about the 30, there was one fan who literally screamed what play the offense should run from beginning to end, calling himself coach Big Kahuna. You couldn't help but smile.

You couldn't help but be impressed by the Red team's quarterback, senior Matt Miller (all of 165 pounds when in full gear and soaked to the jockstrap), whose football-playing days ending will almost assuredly coincide with his high school's final football game of the season, scramble for a tough six yards up the middle play after play and then let loose a strike 30 yards downfield to a wide open receiver.

You also couldn't help but be inspired by how the Blue team, which was obviously outclassed, made the game the most competitive 32-point blowout in the history of football.

Talented but undisciplined, the Blue team, (from the inner region of the nation's poorest city two of the last three years) gritted its way through the game, led by huge number 11, a quarterback that I affectionately referred to as Daunte.

The team turned the ball over on downs on its first series and was close to falling behind 28-0 in the first quarter. However, the team showed spunk and managed a scoring drive, then after giving up a punt return for a touchdown, took a kickoff to the house, before limiting the militaristically in-synch Red squad to only 13 points the rest of the game, losing by a final score of 48-16. Amazing, considering they gave up more than that in the first 10 minutes.

But alas, even as the most secluded and sheltered forest will eventually face the reality of fire and destruction, even the high school game is not as pure or innocent as it was. In the moments after the game, when "Let's Get It Started" by the Black Eyed Peas was blaring out of the locker room, I caught wind that the coaches would be watching film until 4 a.m. that night, in preparation for the upcoming contest.

I guess I just figured that kind of preparation was reserved for those coaches not working on teacher's salaries.

Sigh.

Still, it was as close to pure, unadulterated football as you could find, with every play being the BCS and Super Bowl combined. It was beautiful. It was spectacular.

It was football.

For those purists out there who wish the NFL and college games were just like the old days, please contact Dave at [email protected].