It's not out of the ordinary for quarterbacks to inspire their teammates with motivational speeches, helmet head butts or rump slaps. Yet Fort Hamilton (N.Y.) High quarterback Marvin Centeno found an all-new way to inspire his team to great heights: With his haircut.

As reported in the New York Daily News and the New York Post, Centeno showed up for New York City's Public School Athletic League championship game at Yankee Stadium with what can only be described as a unique 'do. On one side of his closely-cropped flat-top cut, Centeno carved the word "O-line", with the numbers of five of his offensive linemen on the other side.

The haircut worked wonders, helping inspire Centeno's offensive line to give him just enough time to find Brandon Reddish on a 26-yard touchdown pass that helped lead the Tigers to the first-ever PSAL title crowned at the new Yankee Stadium.

"I just did it to show them how I feel about them," Centeno told the Daily News. "I'm very close to those guys, and I

There's a new all-time high school basketball wins leader, and for the first time, it's a she, not a he.

As reported by the Associated Press, Granbury (Texas) High coach Leta Andrews, a 73-year-old who has been coaching high school basketball in Texas for nearly half a century, won her 1,334th game in charge of the Granbury Lady Pirates on Tuesday night. The victory broke the previous all-time wins record held by former Fort Worth Dunbar (Texas) High boys basketball coach Robert Hughes.

The honor puts yet another star on a career which has earned Andrews a spot in three different Halls of Fame -- the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame and Texas Sports Hall of Fame -- and the distinction of being an inaugural recipient of the Morgan Wootten Lifetime Achievement Award, given by the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.

"This is awesome," Andrews told the Associated Press after breaking the record. "I look back on my career, and some people think I'm

A popular and highly respected pastor and high school basketball coach in San Antonio has landed himself undesired attention for an overreaction that couldn't have come at a less appropriate time.

Last week, San Antonio Madison (Texas) High coach John Valenzuela, more commonly known as Coach Val, became enraged at officials during his team's loss to Austin Westlake (Texas) High. In the final minute of the game, with Valenzuela upset at calls going against his team, he angrily berated the officiating crew, then, after a final foul, snapped his clipboard in half and tossed it on the court.

Not only was the disruption a clear break with Valenzuela's respected and well-cultivated Christian image and message (an outbreak that comes just at the start of the Christmas season, at that), it also undermines a project he and a team of videographers are working on. A forthcoming film, which will be entitled "Building Champions with Coach Val" is being filmed using footage from Madison's 2010-11

Last week Prep Rally reported on the bizarre legal hangup delaying the West Virginia Class AAA football championship game. That wait for the game is finally over, and Martinsburg (W. Va.) High finally knows who it will be playing. The trick is that its opponent now is not the team it focused on last week.

On Tuesday, the West Virginia State Supreme Court sided in favor of Brooke (W. Va.) High in its appeal of the ruling by Kanawha County Judge Carrie Webster, who issued a pair of rulings which allowed four players who had been involved in a fight during South Charleston (W. Va.) High's quarterfinal victory to play in the team's semifinal matchup with Brooke.

"I'm pleased we got an expediated hearing," West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission's executive director Gary Ray told the Associated Press. "Now we can move forward and determine a champion on the field and bring some closure to the season of football."

South Charleston, the two-time defending West Virginia AAA

Northeast Bradford (Pa.) High faces plenty of challenges. While being part of one of the state's smallest school districts (only one high school), in tiny Rome, Pa., NEB struggles to allocate funding for all the sports teams its students want to compete in. Historically the Panthers have not fielded a football team because of the significant expense of equipment and transportation for a sport which would be marginally short of players to field a traditional team.

Yet, unlike other school districts across the state and country which allow their students to play for teams in neighboring districts, Northeast Bradford is refusing to let its students play football whatsoever, with one of the primary reasons cited in keeping them from football being a need to maintain "school pride."

According to the Towanda Daily Review, all attempts to allow NEB students to play for another school district have essentially been halted by expenses that the district has deemed as excessive. Northeast

If there was ever any question that the Texas 5A Division I quarterfinal matchup between Euless Trinity (Texas) High and rival Coppell (Texas) High could have drawn plenty more fans than the 12,000 who packed Southlake Caroll (Texas) High's Dragon Stadium, those questions were answered by some amazing TV data. According to the Dallas Morning News, via Dallas/Forth Worth-area TV station KTVT, nearly 100,000 in the station's viewing area watched Trinity scrape past Coppell on the final play of a game, 41-40, which some have called one of the best in the long history of Texas' premier high school tournament.

Not only was the game the second-highest high school football broadcast rating ever pulled in by KTVT (which routinely broadcasts big high school games), it was also a standout performer among all sports broadcasts in the Dallas area last week. The Trinity-Coppell showdown's 1.5 share and 4 rating was only a tiny shade below the 1.8 rating and 5 share that LeBron James and the Heat's

In most ways, Jason Polansky is like a lot of high school swimmers. The Catoctin (Md.) High freshman is a determined trainer who never misses a practice and can't wait for the winter swim season's first meet. But there is something strikingly different about Polansky: He's completely blind.

According to WUSA-TV in nearby Washington, D.C., Polanksy has impressed teammates and coaches with his ability to fit in with his teammates. The 14-year-old, who first began swimming at age 4, has had to adjust to more rigid swimming lanes and the need for a steadily paced stroke to help him determine how much farther he needs to swim before reaching the wall. The freshman counts all his strokes so he knows when he's approaching a wall.

Still, those adjustments -- which are significant without sight -- have come along at a startling pace, leading coaches and Polansky himself to approach the forthcoming season with ample reasons for optimism.

"This is really the first time I've done competition

When Tumwater (Wash.) High wrapped up its first state title in 17 years, knocking off Archbishop Murphy (Wash.) in Saturday's Class 2A state title game, 34-14, coach Sid Otton stood on the sidelines with a smile. Like all of the longtime coach's five state titles, most of that smile came from the satisfaction that comes from a long campaign at its ultimate end, but this time there was a bit more to it.

In fact, Otton can be excused if he was suffering from a bit of deja vu, even if he hadn't won a state title since 1993. That's because this team has a lot in common with his past squads. According to the Tacoma News Tribune, this season, Tumwater fielded 11 varsity players who were the sons of former Tumwater players, all of whom have fathers who also played under Otton.

"We have a saying, it's ‘Tradition never graduates,'" Otton told the Tacoma News Tribune. "There's a strong T-Bird tradition here. It's a neat thing."

Among Tumwater's familial links are the Hargraves, father Greg and