Football Features

Football - Football Features

It's 5:30 p.m. on the seventh day of Ramadan. Irving MacArthur's Shahzeb Khan and Mohammed Mohammed don red jerseys and white helmets and run drills as the starting quarterback and backup wide receiver at football practice. Their most recent meal came about 13 hours ago, at about the same time as their last gulp of water.

"When you see everybody else on the water break," Mohammed said, "of course you think about it. But you have to fight through it."

This is a trying month for all followers. Islam's holiest period, which shifts about 11 days every solar year, has landed at the start of football practice in the middle of the hottest month during what had been a relentless heat wave.

Dallas Morning News 

Football - Football Features

For Harper senior quarterback Jake Whitten, just being able to run onto the football field for the first game against Mason will be an accomplishment. While clearing brush during the spring with several teammates on a ranch near Brady, Whitten had his leg nearly amputated by a brush hog being used by teammate Cody Harbin.

“My first thought was, ‘I really don’t want to die,’” Whitten said. “Then I started worrying about my leg. I didn’t want to lose it, but I really felt bad for Cody. I didn’t want my friend to have to live with that.”

Kerrville Daily Times

Football - Football Features

Zach Quisenberry’s phone has been strangely silent the past two weeks.  For the first time since he started coaching at Odessa Permian, Quisenberry hasn’t heard from his father, in the days leading up to the game.

Permian opens its 2010 season at 7:30 p.m. Friday on the road against Smithson Valley, where Zach's father Randy is an outside linebackers and special teams coach.

“It’s definitely going to be intense,” Zach Quisenberry said. “I don’t know how things are going to be before the game.”

Odessa American

Football - Football Features

Rubin Covington is the first-ever varsity head varsity football coach at Ponder.

In a state where finding a high school without a football program is like trying to spot a lake in the middle of the Sahara, Covington is set to make a splash as the Lions prepare to start their inaugural UIL football season against Muenster on Friday.

Denton Record-Chronicle

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In the 2000 U.S. Census, Terrell County was one of 67 rural Texas counties that lost population -- even as the state gained nearly 4 million residents.

The county now has about 1,100 people, one-third of its peak when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House. This fall, enrollment at Sanderson High School will be about 38 students, an all-time low.

Contrary to the grim portents of ruin and decline, by one critical indicator of small-town West Texas vitality, the place is alive and kicking.

"If you've got a six-man football team, it means your schools are still healthy," said Blain Chriesman, 56, whose various hats include chief appraiser and tax assessor, as well as school business manager.

Midland Reporter-Telegram

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Monterrey Prepa Tec and Tigres Juvenil, two high schools in Monterey, Mexico will play a combined nine games in Texas this season.

The Tigres Juvenil have won the national championship of Mexico twice. Prepa Tec — a private school that attracts students from throughout Mexico — upgraded its schedule the past two years by playing Allen.

Austin American-Statesman
Austin American-Statesman
The Woodlands faces Monterrey Prepa Tec
Monterrey Prepa Tec opens season at The Woodlands