2011 IHSAA Football Playoffs: First Round

The high school football regular season is now behind us and tonight kicked off the IHSAA playoffs. (Or is it “playoff”?) City High hosted Cedar Rapids Kennedy for the teams’ second match-up of the season.

When my dad and I arrived a couple minutes into the first quarter, the Little Hawks were already ahead, 13-0. It was that kind of night. City High grabbed two interceptions (returning one for a pick-six), recovered a fumble (which could have been run back had the recovering player not been tripped up by the shoestrings), and notched a 63-yard touchdown pass.

Yes — a touchdown pass. The Little Hawks actually put the ball in the air tonight, which was a welcome surprise. It is do-or-die time, and I think City High is trying to mix things up as best as they can. Kennedy was probably a good team to experiment on. At halftime the score was 41-6. When the third quarter began, the clock started running continuously since the lead was 35 points. (Back in the day, when one team gained a 50-point lead the game was called. Now, when one team has a 35-point lead, the clock runs continuously until the end or the lead drops below 35.)

City High’s second stringers came into the game in the second half, and it showed. The Little Hawks fumbled and lost the ball three times. To me it looked like botched snaps. The Cougars capitalized, scoring three touchdowns. After the third fumble my dad decided it was time to go. Being a midweek game, we have to go to work tomorrow morning. The final score was 48-26.

I took my camera tonight (finally) because not only do I think tonight may be the final home game of the season, but I believe this was the final game for the current press box. After the season, it will be gutted and remodeled. Just to the north, a two-level Alumni Building will be built. The bathrooms will be moved to the first level of the Alumni Building, and the current bathrooms will be removed to make way for “an expanded and more customer-friendly Concessions area.” I had to take a picture of the way it looks now, before remodeling.


Construction of the Alumni Building and renovation of the press box are Phases 1 and 2 of the Bates Field improvement project. (An earlier phase replaced the old home bleachers. Phase 0?) Phase 3 will improve the stadium lighting. So next season should be an aesthetically different experience at Bates.

The renovation of the press box and the removal of the current, and very outdated, bathrooms is a little bittersweet for me. In the summer of 2003, I painted the inside of the press box while on the school district paint crew. I have to say, it was a pretty cool job, and I was especially proud of what we did in the bathrooms. They had been painted a nasty, tinted yellow, which was pealing off the stall doors and dividers. We gave the bathrooms school spirit, painting the walls white and the stall dividers and doors red. It was really cool. The bathrooms sucked (there were only two toilets in the women’s bathroom, and one toilet and two long troughs in the men’s room), but the paint job was awesome.

Last week I wrote about City High’s “wine and cheese” crowd. Though I could never hear the home side while sitting on the home side, I wondered what it sounded like across the field on the visitor’s side. Noise from the visitor’s side always makes its way across the field, so I assumed the opposite happened, and it does. (Duh!) While my dad and I were walking down First Avenue to the entrance, City High grabbed an interception and the home crowd roared. Roared! And the crowd was pretty thin to boot. I was impressed.

Unless City High plays at home again, or West Branch plays a home playoff game, this is likely the last high school game I will attend this year. It was a good season. Enough said.