Arena Bowl draft! (plus coaching news)
By School House Zach
One of Kern County's most fun high school sporting events just added a new layer. This is like adding a layer to a birthday cake. You can't go wrong here, provided the new layer doesn't have coconut bits in it. Those things are just gross.
But the Arena Bowl's new layer is pretty sweet — instead of an East-West split this year, game director Paul Press and his cohorts have decided to have the head coaches draft their teams.
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That means, of course, that the game, slated for 7 p.m. April 1 at Rabobank Arena, should be ultra-competitive between teams designated as Black and Gold (the West had won eight of the first nine matchups). It also means that teammates could — and almost certainly will — be playing against one another, and it means the players get to sit around and wait to hear their name called.
That will happen Friday on ESPN Radio, 1230 AM, at 3 p.m. The coaches doing the selecting will both have arena-football ties with the old Bakersfield Blitz: Rick Van Horne and Eric Mahanke. Remember, only seniors are eligible for the Arena Bowl, and Cody Kessler, who enrolled early at USC, won't be playing.
Here's the other twist. Yours truly will be consulting Van Horne, while 1230 AM personality Corey Costelloe, who does play-by-play for high school football games on the radio, helps Mahanke. Should be a lot of fun.
The first 12 rounds or so will be broadcast live Friday afternoon. The rest of the draft results will be available here Friday evening and in The Californian on Saturday.
Here's the other other twist: There also will be senior all-star basketball games, for the boys and the girls, the day after the football game.
• More football news on a busy Wednesday: North High has chosen Cy Silver to take over its football program. Silver already coaches the baseball team at North, so he'll be the Stars' answer to Liberty's Tony Mills.
Silver has never been a head varsity football coach, but he did coach the JV team at North under Jack O'Brien and Mike Snow and was the varsity defensive coordinator under the previous coach, Mark Camps.
The Silver name, of course, is synonymous with North High: Cy's dad, Tony, was a longtime baseball coach and football assistant at the school, and Cy has been around North since he was a tyke.
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