Big Games in Big Stadiums Can Come With Big Surprises

By Preston Williams

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Playing a state championship football game in a large professional or college facility, as Maryland has done for years at 71,000-seat M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and as Virginia teams will do Saturday at 60,000-seat Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, can provide memories that last a lifetime.

It also can provide cramps that last a halftime.

Yes, internal distress is just one example of the unforeseen pitfalls that can crop up when playing in the unfamiliar environment of a cavernous stadium a dozen times larger and infinitely more elaborate than most high school fields.

Potomac Coach Eric Knight found this out in the 2003 Maryland 2A title game at M&T. Potomac vs. Aberdeen. Cold day. Potomac raced out to a 25-7 halftime lead thanks to quarterback Harold Dorman, who threw for three touchdowns and ran for a fourth. “We were dominating every phase of the game,” Knight recalled.

Here’s the problem: Dorman had worn fitted undergarments to stay warm, not realizing that the M&T playing surface was heated. By halftime, from the combination of clothing and warm surface, Dorman had become dehydrated, and he missed most of the third quarter.

By the time he returned to the game, Aberdeen had pulled within a touchdown, swiped the momentum and ended up winning 33-25 in overtime, in great part because of a quarterback’s oppressive underwear.

“We should have just played in some normal stuff, maybe some sleeves, but not stuff to make it warmer,” Knight said. “No matter how much Gatorade or water we gave him, he’d only be good for a couple plays and had to come out.”

Football games are unpredictable enough: odd bounces, injuries, questionable calls. But playing in a state championship at a huge stadium is enough to give control-freak coaches — that is, all of them — nightmares.

Where will the buses drop us off? Where are the locker rooms? What’s the playing surface like? What shoes should we wear? How long will we have for warmups? Can we practice on the field?

Virginia and Maryland conduct media days in which the teams’ coaches, and sometimes players, are briefed on game-day procedures. But there’s no preparing 50, 60 or 70 boys for the big-time stadium experience when many of them have not visited as fans, let alone run out of a tunnel onto a pristine field, encircled by 71,000 seats.

Put it another way: Tom Brady and his history-chasing New England Patriots played at M&T Bank Stadium this week on “Monday Night Football.” Damascus will play there today. Arundel and Quince Orchard will play there tomorrow. River Hill will play there Saturday.

What’s the equivalent? A high school band concert at the Kennedy Center? Forensics on the floor of the U.S. Capitol?

“You can’t prepare kids for the magnitude of walking into the stadium,” said McDonough Coach Dave Bradshaw, whose team lost to Edmondson in the Maryland 2A final last year.

“Kind of like ‘Hoosiers’ — I might need to take them down and walk them around a little bit,” joked Potomac (Va.) Coach Tony Lilly, who played in two Super Bowls as a defensive back for the Denver Broncos. “Hopefully, we’ll focus on the field itself right there in that box and not what’s surrounding us.”

That’s not easy. River Hill senior linebacker Andrew Donoghue said he thinks his team got caught up in the wow factor when it lost to Friendly in the Maryland 3A final last year.

“Hopefully, this year we’ll be a little more focused on the game than being in the stadium,” Donoghue said. “One thing is the size of the whole stadium, and another thing is knowing that the best of the best play on these fields every Sunday, and most of us are never going to get a chance to play on that field ever again.”

Damascus Coach Dan Makosy, whose team won state titles in 2003 and 2005 and finished as state runner-up in 2004, has built in time for the players to absorb their surroundings, which he said helps keep his team both loose and focused.

After the Swarmin’ Hornets put on their uniforms, Makosy gives the players and coaches about 20 minutes to go out on the field and take pictures or spike the ball or do whatever they want to do to get their yuks out. Arundel Coach Chuck Markiewicz this season purposely changed some game days and practice times to make his Wildcats more adaptable, should they reach the playoffs and have to break routine. He seemed actually enthused about a power outage at the school Monday that forced some on-the-fly changing of plans.

(Then again, Markiewicz did a presentation for the team at the beginning of the season that they went through each week, detailing what they needed to do to be successful. The final images? A state championship ring and M&T Bank Stadium).

“We’ve been thinking about this a long time,” Markiewicz said. “This is not a surprise for us.”

Perhaps no players have to be more adaptable in big-stadium high school championships than kickers. High school goal posts are 23 feet 4 inches wide. College and NFL goal posts are 18 feet 6 inches wide. This matters. Just ask Stone Bridge Coach Mickey Thompson, whose Park View team in 1999 missed a 45-yard field goal with 10 seconds left in a 21-20 Division 4 state championship loss to Salem at James Madison University. On a high school field, the kick would have been good.

It would be like a three-point specialist showing up for a state basketball championship and playing on tighter rims, like one of those rip-off carnival games.

“I still remember those goal posts,” Thompson said with a groan.

But Thompson, a former Virginia defensive lineman, will get to return to his old college field this weekend to face Potomac. Woodbridge and Westfield will play there as well. And all the players on Maryland state finalist teams will get to play at M&T, giving them a story they can tell for the rest of their lives.

“Any time you go to a Ravens game, [you can say], ‘I played there,’ ” said Sherwood Coach Al Thomas, whose team, eliminated this season in the Maryland 4A West final, has played in six state finals since 1995.

Here’s how Thomas imagines the rest of that conversation playing out:

“You played for the Ravens?”

“No. I played for Sherwood.”

Varsity Letter is a weekly column about high school sports in the Washington area.

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