Your experience following HS football out of SE Texas

[Tulsa]

For those of you who have lived out of Texas-- what is your experience following HS football in other states? My wife and I live in Oklahoma after growing up in Texas high schools: WOS for me, and my wife is from Abilene High in West Texas.

Oklahoma HS football is comparable to Texas as far as school pride, game attendance and atmosphere . A few schools have facilties that embarass smaller colleges, but the playoffs here just don't cut it...they lack the excitement of Texas football.

What's it like in other states?

[Bobcatfan4life]

When we evacuated to Arkansas during the hurricane last year we watched the Batesville Pioneers play. Their stadium was about the size of Lumberton's and they had the new field turf. Beautiful facility but it was the most boring game I had ever watched. They just didn't get into the game like we do here. No standing up and cheering or anything just sit there and clap every now and then.

[Coaches Perspective]

There are very few places in our great country that revere the sport of football (or any high school activitie for that matter) as does Texas.

I have lived in 7 states outside of Texas in the span of my 42 years and have witnessed school districts in Maine that have considered cutting the sport from the school systems due to liberal thinking that it will make violent felons in the future. They also stated they should cut it for fiscal reasons, Maine is also a basketball state. Oregon, Washington, South Carolina, California all have schools that are good, but the communities as a whole do not seem to embrace high school activities like Tejas.

You could probably attribute it to the size of the communities that have numerous high schools in the areas, ah who knows.

I am a big fan of the Jenks, OK community.

Ben

[SETXsports Broadcaster]

I was stationed in Washington DC and a lot of the schools dont even offer football but where I lived in Maryland there would be schools that were only a couple of blocks from each other. Fan support was weak and there was only one side to a HS stadium. I would love to see that happen here When I was growing up in Germany football was a big sport for us kids as each military post had its own 6,7 and 8th grade football teams so not only did we represent the school but the soldiers would come out and cheer us on

[Tulsa]

Let me add that the SCHOOLS show their pride, but the town's are indifferent-- you don't see "GO TIGERS!" and such signage around town. Perhaps such as the 6A state champ in Oklahoma is almost always a big city suburb school as Coaches Perspective pointed out.

Jenks is the only big school I've seen that compares to Texas football in terms of community support.

Also, due to the smaller population of Oklahoma, the playoffs don't take long. There are only 32 schools in each class, half of which make the playoffs-- win 2 games and you're already in the semis! State champs by Thanksgiving!

[WOS95]

i spent the 2005 football season in shreveport, la. i would go on fridays to watch football at the independence bowl. there was good fan support for the teams in northern louisiana. just like in texas certain schools had more fans than others. the biggest crowd i saw for a louisiana school was for powerhouse west monroe. it was also interesting because east texas schools would play the northern louisiana schools. Longview, Marshall, and Texarkana Texas High would all play schools from louisiana. that doesn't go on too much down here in southeast texas. it was a different and fun experience living in shreveport and one i would not trade for anything. however, im very glad to be home again to see the mustangs and all the other area teams that i'm familiar with. without question Texas high school football is the best in the country.