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P/CLOUDY Temp: 48 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Thursday, November 21, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend November 1, 2002 Jeff Barry wears the colors of both Medford teams playing in tonight�s Southern Oregon Conference championship game. He played quarterback for Medford Senior High in 1985 as a junior, then led the South Medford team when the school split the next year. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Medford wins: North vs. South rivalry brings the town together By MARK FREEMAN and JONEL ALECCIA Mail Tribune Jeff Barry’s football past personifies Medford’s giddiness over its high school gridiron today. The 34-year-old Barry quarterbacked the last Medford Senior High School football team in 1985 as a junior, then led the new South Medford High team when the school split the following year — making him a virtual Black Tornado-Panther hybrid. With ties to both teams, Barry understandably is excited about tonight’s North Medford-South Medford football game: It is the first time the two schools will vie for a conference championship with no Ashland Grizzlies or Grants Pass Cavemen in the mix. For once, it’s not just North versus South. It’s Medford versus Medford, with the town guaranteed a win. "It’s amazing how two little high school football teams with a rivalry can bring a town together," says Barry, who now works for a Medford mortgage broker following a 12-year career in professional baseball. "There will be a lot of happy winners. There also will be a lot of broken hearts. But it’s all Medford, and that makes it exciting." About 8,500 people — or one of every seven Medford residents — will pack Spiegelberg Stadium tonight for the Black and Blue game. It’s the 17th annual but the first with the Southern Oregon Conference championship on the line. Both schools are guaranteed state playoff berths, and both are ranked in the top 10. All reserved tickets have been sold since Tuesday, and scalpers will be bartering with the seatless trying to wiggle into Spiegelberg Stadium, where both teams play their home games. The absence of college and pro sports has helped make high school athletics a part of Medford’s identity — and nothing tops football on a fall Friday. "There wasn’t too much else to do," says Kris Singler, 49, who grew up in Klamath Falls and spent plenty of time in Medford bleachers. "Now kids can go to the mall or stay home and play Nintendo." Like many fans in the stands, Singler has strong ties to the field, even if her own sons aren’t old enough to play. Her brother-in-law is South head coach Bill Singler and her nephew, Logan Boyd, is a sophomore starter on offense and defense for South. She’s unabashedly rooting for South, but Singler says no matter who wins, the community benefits. "It’s kind of like Medford’s back on top," she says. "It’s a no-lose situation." Kathy Mueller, 51, agrees. A 1969 graduate of Medford, she was dismayed at the lack of public support in the years after the schools split. "I went to a game a few years ago and I was almost in tears because nobody was there," she says. "It’s good to have it back. People don’t leave at halftime. They stay and listen to the band." Barry says there are three kinds of Medford football fans — die-hard Black Tornado fans, die-hard Panther fans and just die-hard Medford fans. "It shows you what an interesting community we have here," Barry says. "Everywhere you go, there are people who don’t have kids in either school but are looking forward to this game." One of those fans whose DNA won’t be represented on the field with any of tonight’s players is Richard Morgan, 76, who’s been going to games since he graduated from Medford in 1947. A childhood illness kept him off the field, but not out of the stands. Morgan possesses season tickets for both schools and has missed few contests in 55 years. "It’s something to do on a Friday night," he says. "I’m not a movie buff. It was just something for me to watch these athletes perform." Whether never an athlete or a classic has-been, adults will be drawn to an in-town championship game because it helps create a sense of community in what Southern Oregon University sociologist Echo Fields calls "the other Oregon." "We do feel neglected and forgotten down at this end of the state," she says. "Anything we can do to boost our status makes us feel better." Friday’s game is typical of many "important" football contests, Fields says. "Football, of course, is pseudo-combat, quasi-military," she says. "Cohesion is generated because you’ve got two sides and each side has an adversary. It creates cohesion in the community on both sides." But it also creates disillusionment among kids who do not fit this muscular mode, Fields says. "The fame that football players get is something that excludes kids who are not athletes, who are not appropriately hyper-masculine. They would not be seeing this as a happy moment in their life." But tonight’s game is a happy moment that fan Leann Green says she anticipated years ago, when the athletes were raising eyebrows for their prowess in junior high. "You could see this coming when these kids were seventh- and eighth-graders," says Green, 49, a bookkeeper at South whose son, Ryan, played football for North through his sophomore year. Even though she works at South, Green has a special tie to the team across town. "I watched most of those North players grow up, and my loyalties are with them," says Green. "I’m going to sit over on the North side and keep my mouth shut." As for Barry, tonight’s championship has so much on the line that he’s not confiding for whom he’s rooting or even where he’ll sit at Spiegelberg Stadium. "We’ll have to keep that quiet," he says. "Let’s just say, I root for both." Athletic director enjoys prospects No matter where Bruce Howell sits at tonight’s conference championship game between North and South Medford high schools, he’ll be smiling. Howell, the Medford School District athletics director, says North-South football will generate more than $100,000 this year. Sixty percent of the receipts fund sports at both high schools. Forty percent helps keep grade-schoolers and junior high kids busy on their courts and fields. "It’s the golden goose that keeps 30 percent of all our kids in athletics, and that’s good," Howell says. "We’re very fortunate that we’re still a small enough town that our community sports are still important to us," he says. The big game What: Southern Oregon Conference championship football game between North and South Medford high schools. When: 7:30 p.m. today. Where: Spiegelberg Stadium. On the radio: KCMX (880-AM) and KAKT (105-FM). Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. 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