About a week ago I found a fax on my desk from the Texas High School Coaches Association asking me to make my picks for the top 10 teams in each football classification for the THSCA media poll.
The blank poll was accompanied by a sheet listing the projected district winners as selected by the coaches in that district.
I guess the thinking is if you can’t win your district, you must not be one of the best 10 teams in your class.
I had never been asked to participate in a formal media poll like this, so my first reaction was serious excitement.
Finally the perks of being a member of the Legitimate Media come my way.
That feeling didn’t last forever, instead being replaced a few minutes later by something that felt like a mix of equal parts fear and doubt.
The feeling that emerges when a person realizes they have no idea what to do.
Not to say that I don’t know anything about high school football in Texas.
But I certainly don’t know enough about every school in Texas to come up with a list of the 10 best teams in Texas that is truly a list of my own creation, instead of being totally influenced by what other people say and write.
Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of asking my opinion if I’m just blindly repeating what someone else thinks?
I’m from Austin and live in Cleburne, so what do I know about Southlake Carroll or Katy or Euless Trinity or any other program that I didn’t pick up from other people’s opinions, Texas Football magazine, or in the case of Euless Trinity, one of my best friends from college, who is a Trinity alum?
I don’t even know much about top Austin area schools such as Lake Travis, Westlake or Pflugerville, except they are highly-regarded programs.
Johnson County schools I know a bit more about since I’ve had the chance to see a few of them practice and have talked to the head coaches about their prospects for 2008.
But I still lack that crucial piece of information — I haven’t seen them play yet.
Any coach will tell you that you don’t know what kind of team you have until they play a live game.
Practices and scrimmages can only show you so much.
So I’m still unsure what to do with this blank poll sheet in front of me.
I’ve thought about simply copying Texas Football’s Top 10 for each class and passing it off as my own, but that feels like cheating.
Maybe I should be a homer, and put all of the Johnson County schools at the top.
The problem with that is the simple fact that I despise homer sports journalists and I doubt I could look myself in the mirror if I filled out my poll just to score brownie points.
So what I think I’ll do is just keep it, unfilled and un-mailed, as a reminder that I don’t know everything just yet.
Maybe one of these days I’ll know enough to be able to fill out a poll based on my own conclusions.
Jerrad Lindenmuth can be reached at 817-558-2855,
ext. 2335
Sports
Best to file poll away for a later day and time
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