College Football belongs on Saturdays

I just read where ESPN has paid Appalachian State to move their home game with Wofford to a Friday Night. This move brought back memories of something that happened with my college East Carolina about 6 years ago. In the state of North Carolina as in many states Friday night is reserved for high school football and Saturdays for college ball. When you start overstepping those traditional boundaries someone gets hurt.

In the case of East Carolina, we had a horrendous athletic director at the time that seemed to think he knew what was best for ECU regardless of what others may have thought, including the football coach at the time, Steve Logan. Seems ESPN came to ECU with a desire to move a game to a Friday night. This AD, (Mike Hamrick) had previously told the North Carolina High School Athletic Association that he wouldn't host a game on Friday night and would keep them informed of any possibilities that may came up. Essentially he gave them his word. Well ESPN calls to ask and Hamrick says yes without speaking to the NCHSAA or even to his head football coach. ECU was creamed in the media for this decision and rightfully so. Even though it was one persons decision, the school took the wrath. High school coaches were mad, fans were mad and very few approved of the decision. This entire fiasco led to a lot of hurt feelings and damage for ECU.

For more on this see

http://www.bonesville.net/Articles/DennyOBrien/2002/October/100802_CharlesAdams-NCHSAA_Interview-Story.htm

Now 6 years later, ASU and Wofford will engage in battle on a Friday night. I don't like it, but I will credit ASU, as soon as the possibility came up, they began talks with the NCHSAA, they kept the local high school, Watauga, in the loop and the lines of communication stayed open. Because they handled it professionally, Watauga was able to move game to Thursday night. While I don't like Friday night college football, this instance was handled much better. Everyone will work through it and both games will be positives.

Hopefully it will be a long time until another Friday night game comes up in North Carolina, When it does, lets hope the schools follow the ASU model versus the Mike Hamrick model in dealing with the issue.