Road Trip With the Mavs

As you must already know, football in Texas is huge. High school football in Texas is the stuff legends are made of.....For example Friday Night Lights. This highly charged, albeit somewhat incorrect view of Odessa Permian's MOJO magic, was just a hint of what football means to Texas folks.

Yes, I know it's February. Yes, I know it's a long time until two- a- day practices roll around next August. So why am I talking about it now? Because today was the day that the Texas University Interscholastic League, which oversees high school football, realigned the districts. We'll be living with their little plan for 2 years.

The UIL, in all its wisdom, did a number on my favorite team, the Eastland Mavericks. The idea of a district is to group similarly sized teams in a specific geographical area into districts for scheduling competitions.

New to Eastland's district, is the pride of Wise county...Boyd High School. Yes, Wise county--read that "many moons from Eastland."

My point is this: Boyd is 95.9 miles one way from Eastland. That's 191.8 miles roundtrip. At state reimbursement rates, that's $85.35 a trip in an individual car. Imagine the cost of roading multiple buses for team, band, cheerleaders etc.

At a time when every Texas state agency is being forced into budget slashing and "making do", the UIL boys have a brain fart and come up with this dandy little money saving configuration.

What WERE they thinkin'?????