The Field Is Wide Open When It Comes To Playoff Scheduling

Courtesy of the American-Statesman
Written by George Breazeale
November 10, 2005

Now is the time for fortune and competitive verve to magnify or shrink several thousand Texas high school football players' state championship dreams.

Ten University Interscholastic League state championships, with 468 teams in pursuit, will be distant but alluring prizes when the state playoffs begin this week. While some purists believe competitive inequities have resulted from steady expansion of the playoffs (three teams qualify from Class 5A down through 2A districts, two each from Class A and six-man leagues), every coach is determined to give his team maximum opportunity to slash through the postseason bramble bushes.

"Athletic directors and coaches not only want their teams to have good chances to win, but they should take into account their players' welfare and their supporters' comfort," said Tommy Cox, who addresses those concerns for 11 schools as athletics director for the Austin Independent School District.

Cox, who guided Travis and Bowie to the playoffs when he was a head coach, has fewer postseason problems than usual this year. None of the AISD's 5A teams qualified for playoff warfare, necessitating arrangements only for three qualifiers from District 25-4A.

Some bizarre stories have surfaced during the eight-plus decades of the UIL playoffs. One classic conflict occurred in the mid-1940s, when two stubborn athletics directors finally resorted to a coin toss to choose a game site. The loser of the flip, however, had the right to name the date and time for the contest. His choice was a 3 a.m. Sunday kickoff -- and when he refused to budge, the game site was adjusted to his satisfaction.

"Athletic directors and coaches are superstitious," said Bob Shipley, who helped arrange 12 playoffs for his Burnet Bulldogs from 2001 through 2004. "Of all the games we set up, the 3A quarterfinals matchup with Sinton in 2003 was the most difficult, mainly because we had beaten them in Bobcat Stadium the year before."

Shipley said Sinton officials didn't want to return to San Marcos because of the 2002 loss, and were opposed to the Alamodome because the Pirates had lost a playoff game there several years before. Another San Antonio site was unacceptable to Shipley because of the playing surface.

"Finally, we decided to flip for home and home," Shipley said. "Sinton chose Buccaneer Stadium in Corpus Christi for home field and since we would have had to drive past Sinton to get there, we designated Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco as our home site. Naturally, Waco didn't sit very well with Sinton."

Sinton won the flip -- and lost the Buccaneer Stadium game 42-21.

Since Cox represents so many schools, he doesn't yield to superstition. Moreover, if he wins coin tosses for home-field site, minimal travel is a given for AISD schools, meaning Burger Stadium, Nelson Field and House Park are in frequent use -- and will soon be even more attractive.

All three AISD stadiums are scheduled to receive artificial playing surfaces. Burger will be the first, Cox said, getting its new field -- a fairly new type of artificial surface called in-fill -- next fall, with Nelson following in 2007 and House Park in 2008. Their rubberized fill makes the surface a lot like grass, Cox said, but without the abrasive elements and the staph infection risks of older artificial turf.

Cox said that even smaller schools, from 3A on down, gravitate toward artificial surfaces for playoff games, "not just any turf, but newer types. In-fill is far more cost-effective than grass.

"With in-fill, we should attract more playoff games that don't involve AISD schools," Cox said. "UT Royal-Memorial Stadium hasn't hosted high school playoff games the last several years and our fields should compare favorably with such artificial-surface facilities as Hays, Round Rock and Westlake."

Cox recalls no such bargaining chips as 3 a.m. Sunday kickoffs, but has experienced a few surprises in playoff negotiations.

"For some reason, Converse Judson never wanted to play us (Bowie) at their place," he said. "One reason was probably that Judson's grass home field was in bad shape by playoff time. We agreed to play bi-district there in 2001, my last year to coach. But a rain that week turned the field to solid mud and we moved it to Comalander, an artificial-turf stadium in San Antonio."

Cox said travel costs, skyrocketing because of increased gasoline prices, will be a factor in where AISD teams play their postseason contests.

"The fuel thing will probably figure in for other schools, too," Cox said. "Gas isn't $1.25 a gallon anymore. We won't travel any farther than we absolutely have to."