Varsity Weekly: Rivalry turns 100; GEICO football; East River hire
One of Florida’s oldest high school football rivalries hits the century mark this fall in Osceola County.
Kissimmee Osceola hosts St. Cloud on Friday, Sept. 29, in the 100th meeting between those schools since 1925, which marks the fifth-longest rivalry in the state.
Athletic directors at both schools took to social media in May in search of former players and coaches to be in attendance and take part in pregame festivities.
More details can be made available by emailing Osceola AD Rick Tribit at Richard.Tribit@osceolaschools.net and St. Cloud AD Bryan Smart at Bryan.Smart@osceolaschools.net.
“We’re trying to reach out to anyone that played in the game to come back for it,” Smart said. “It’s going to be pretty special and something we’re all going to remember, because something like that doesn’t happen very often.”
Osceola owns a 68-27-4 overall record in the series, which includes 17 wins in a row since 2006. St. Cloud, which forfeited an overtime victory in 2010, has struggled to keep pace since claiming back-to-back victories in 2004 and ‘05.
“They’ve had the better of us, but it’s always been a respectful rivalry,” Smart said.
Kowboys head coach Eric Pinellas, a 1990 Osceola graduate who took part in the rivalry in the late 1980s, said he still stresses the importance of the game to his players.
“The rivalry is still important to the people born and raised in Kissimmee and St. Cloud,” Pinellas said. “They still have kids and grandkids that are attending these schools and playing in these games.”
Only four other rivalry games in Florida have been played longer.
Arcadia DeSoto vs. Wauchula Hardee and St. Augustine vs. Palatka played for the first time in 1922. Hillsborough vs. Tampa Plant and Bradenton Manatee vs. Sarasota have played yearly since 1923.
East River makes hire
Winter Park assistant coach Antonio Hernandez was announced as East River’s new head football coach early this week.
Hernandez replaces Tony Piccalo, who led the Falcons to a 31-27 record in six seasons. Piccalo is now an assistant head coach at Satellite High in Brevard County.
Hernandez, a former Lake Highland Prep player, served as offensive coordinator at Sanford Seminole for three seasons before assisting at Winter Park the past four years.
The Orlando Sentinel coverage area, which includes 67 varsity football teams in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake and southwest Volusia counties, has seen a total of 24 coaching changes since the end of last season.
Football media days
Football players from 74 high schools donned game uniforms and were in the spotlight at the Florida Citrus Sports Football Media Days on Monday and Tuesday at Camping World Stadium.
Coaches and top players were interviewed and photographed by the Sentinel and other media outlets ahead of Monday’s kickoff for official preseason practices.
The event was hosted by Florida Citrus Sports and orchestrated by Josh Wilson of FloridaHSfootball.com and Dan LaForest, who promotes the game year-round in his work with the Orlando Touchdown Club, Cure All-Star games and other projects.
Notable preseason Kickoff Classic games scheduled for Aug. 18 include Tampa Jesuit at Jones in a matchup of 2022 state semifinalists at Camping World. The long list that night also includes two more clashes of heavy hitters with Apopka at Osceola and Edgewater at Seminole.
The high school football regular season begins Friday, Aug. 25.
GEICO football
The 14th-annual GEICO High School Football Kickoff includes three state programs among the seven games slated for broadcast on ESPN channels.
On Saturday, Aug. 26, Hollywood’s Chaminade-Madonna faces Maryland’s St. Francis at 12 noon on ESPN and St. Thomas Aquinas plays California’s St. Johns Bosco at 4 p.m. on ESPN2. Both games will take place at Brian Piccolo Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale.
IMG Academy and Pennsylvania’s St. Joseph’s Prep square off later that night at 7 p.m. on ESPN2 from Carey Stadium in Ocean City, N.J.
Fall sports roll call
Football isn’t the only sport that gets off and running on Monday.
The other fall sports – bowling, cross country, girls volleyball, golf and swimming – can also begin practicing ahead of the first days of school.
Classes begin Thursday, Aug. 10, for public schools in Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake Counties. Volusia students arrive on Monday, Aug. 14.
Varsity sports editor Buddy Collings contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email J.C. Carnahan at jcarnahan@orlandosentinel.com.
