Tasser’s Take: WPIAL playoffs are pure competition

Friday Night Lights.” “Remember the Titans.” “Varsity Blues.” We are all aware of the… Friday Night Lights.” “Remember the Titans.” “Varsity Blues.” We are all aware of the high school football culture in this country. The year starts fresh and new for every team, and the season goes on until there are but a few teams left that can win. It’s corny and cliche, but I love it and you should, too.

This week, the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League football playoffs begin. That’s the WPIAL, for you out-of-towners, and it produces some of the best football in the country.

Perennial football powerhouses like North Allegheny, Pittsburgh Central Catholic, Thomas Jefferson, Aliquippa, Rochester and Clairton fill up the WPIAL’s four brackets‚ from big schools’ “AAAA” down to small schools’ “A.”

To give you a better idea of how dominant the WPIAL (District 7) is, check out this stat: Since the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association went to four classifications in 1988, the WPIAL has won a ridiculous 33 total state championships (Districts 11 and 4 come in a distant tie for second, with 11 champs each). On top of that, WPIAL teams have made an additional 29 title game appearances, blowing every other district out of the water.

So this Friday, go check out a local high school. If you’re from around here and your team is playing, go out and support them, or just find a local match-up that intrigues you. Want to see a defending state champ play? Travel to North Allegheny — just 25 minutes up the road in Wexford — and watch them take on Fox Chapel in a Class AAAA first-round matchup.

You could also head to Clairton — a half-hour south — and watch as the team takes on Cornell in a Class A game. Want a game with ties to Pitt? Get the skinny on next year’s “high-octane” backfield and make the journey to Indiana, Pa., to check out Hopewell star Rushel Shell — a No. 11-ranked prospect who has already committed to Pitt — and his quest to break the state rushing record. He has already broken the WPIAL record this year and with 8,530 yards, he’s 497 yards from the Pennsylvania record set by Jeremiah Young in 2008. That should be easy for Shell in two games, if his team keeps winning.

Or you could take a look at Thomas Jefferson, the Class AAA program that has produced University of Pittsburgh stars like Lucas and Nate Nix and Dom DeCicco. That stadium is just 15 minutes away.

If football is not your thing, then maybe soccer is. The WPIAL Championship games are set, with returning state champ Hampton taking on Belle Vernon (the high school of yours truly) in the Class AA game, while Peters Township and Upper St. Clair play in the AAA championship game. Both games are being held on Saturday at Elizabeth-Forward High School and Baldwin High School, respectively.

If you ever played high school sports, you know how big these “do-or-die” games are. So go out and support those teams. Get transported back to a magical place of true competition — a time before college, “pay-for-play” scholarships and actual responsibility. Most games start at 7:30 p.m. and are over by 10 p.m., so everyone can be back in time to study, watch movies or whatever else you crazy kids do on Friday nights.