Friday night football robs high schoolers

What are you doing this Friday? Perhaps you don't exactly have going to a high school football game at the top of your "Things to Do" list.\nBut I hope watching Friday night's Toledo-Marshall game on ESPN isn't part of your plans either.\nThat's because playing college football on Fridays is wrong. \nMany in the national sports media love to complain how the college football player gets exploited. They deserve pay. They deserve special treatment. Some have even suggested that they should not even have to take classes, and that they should be university mercenaries preparing for a career as a football player just as an accounting major prepares for a career as a certified public accountant.\nBut how about the high school football player? That's why there should be no college football on Fridays.\nThe NCAA needs to realize where their feeder system is located. That's high school football. When the NCAA uses its inherent organizational advantages to play games on Fridays in order for more television exposure, they indirectly announce their willingness to compete with high school football.\nThat this happens is apparently oblivious to those in charge. Somebody might want to tell ESPN and the NCAA that high school football teams practice in blistering heat, too. Players' parents often chauffeur them to practice. These parents are the ones ESPN targets in their advertising.\nWhen ESPN broadcasts Friday college football, it is a subtle attempt to divide a community. And for those of you who think that high school football cannot unite a town, you ought to read "Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger and see what a Friday night is like in Odessa, Texas. If not that, just spend a Friday night in places like Massillon, Ohio, or Hobart, Ind.\nFor most high school football players, what happens Friday nights is their one shot at glory. For all the guys who play knowing they have a great shot at a Division I scholarship, there are about 25 or 30 guys who know that high school football will be the pinnacle. They will get to play in front of family and friends. \nAs for those who do have designs on a Division I scholarship, how does this serve them? Toledo coach Tom Amstutz and Marshall coach Bob Pruett are not only in charge of the Xs and Os, but they are also in charge of recruiting. How can they tell their recruiting targets to watch them on TV Friday night when they have a game themselves?\nHigh school kids must be able to have the opportunity to watch college football on TV as it's the cheapest, most convenient way for a high school player to survey and investigate college choices. If they can't ever see the college teams in action, then they make decisions on less than complete information.\nTV exposure is the third prong to running a successful college football program following state-of-the-art facilities and a glory-filled tradition. It's too bad that some schools will do anything to get that exposure.\nIf you're still not swayed, consider the National Football League. When was the last time you saw the NFL play a Friday night game? Consider that as much power as the NCAA holds, the NFL holds even more. If it wanted, we could have NFL games seven days a week. After all, pro football fans are lemmings for controlled violence.\nThe NFL, though, holds off. They don't play Friday night games, and they don't play Saturday games until December when the college regular season is over. The NFL understands better than the college game that football is ritualistic, not only in how it's played but in how it's watched. As Frank Deford noted recently in Sports Illustrated, part of the reason why football has eclipsed baseball in popularity in this country is that the NFL plays every Sunday, that people have come to expect it and that with only one game a week you don't have to constantly watch SportsCenter to know how your favorite team is doing.\nCollege football doesn't quite get it. Their insinuation upon the high school game will only bruise college football's reputation further. The funny thing is that the coverage given to the Maurice Clarett suspension drama only takes away from coverage that could be given to this more long-term insidiousness.\nYou won't be hearing about that on SportsCenter this Friday or any other day of the week.