There’s just something electric about Friday night football.
As the marching bands and cheerleaders get the crowd hyped, it’s easy to feel the sense the excitement and anticipation that crackles through the air on crisp, cool nights in the autumn months.
The game is a two-and-a-half-hour ride. The season lasts over three months, a trek that produces plenty of cheers, and some tears too.
Even the hot dogs from the concession stand taste like a delicacy.
High school football is the thread that can string together a student body and community, making memories that can last a lifetime.
That wasn’t exactly the case last season.
Things unraveled at times during the pandemic last season, causing numerous teams to shut down for weeks before starting up again.
Hopefully, the scholastic sports scene will get back to something closer to normalcy this fall.
The teams will be ready. And so will ours.
Our squad of Josh Friedman, John Lewis, Tom Rimback and Tom McGurk boast over a century of combined experience covering scholastic sports in South Jersey.
We’ll tell the unique stories of these talented athletes and the coaches who guide them through the successes as well as the tough times.
There’s plenty of anticipation for this season and it’s fitting that football is kicking off early, starting with the first Battle at the Beach showcase in Ocean City next weekend. The three-day, 11-game event will take place at Ocean City’s Carey Field, one of the best venues in South Jersey.
We’ll get you ready for all the action with plenty of preseason content, highlight all the top players and the top teams going into the season.
Our Mean 15 rankings will chart the best teams’ progress on a weekly basis, publishing online on Sunday nights and in print on Mondays.
We’ll bring our readers and followers all the action from all the big games each week, covering all corners of southern New Jersey, providing updates and video on our social media platforms from all individual accounts and our football brand, South Jersey Gridiron Gang.
Each week’s best performances will be highlighted in different ways with our three star selections for each county and Player of the Week video. Readers will get their chance to select the top performance of the week by voting in a weekly poll.
But there’s more to fall sports than just touchdowns.
We’ll be providing coverage of other sports like field hockey and boys and girls soccer, providing Mean 15 rankings and three star selections on a weekly basis. There will also be game coverage as well as in-depth features on players and trends in the game throughout the season.
As teams follow their dreams of chasing sectional and state championships, we will be there every step of the way.
At season’s end, we will select our All-South Jersey teams for each of these sports along with Player of the Year, Coach of the Year and Team of the Year honors.
The journey begins this week.
Enjoy the ride with us.
Tom McGurk is a regional sports reporter for the Courier-Post, The Daily Journal and Burlington County Times, covering South Jersey sports for over 30 years. If you have a sports story that needs to be told, contact him at (856) 486-2420 or email tmcgurk@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @McGurkSports. Help support local journalism with a digital subscription.
