Friday night will be lit by TV lights in DC

Jim Williams, The Examiner
Oct 20, 2006 5:00 AM (1 hr 54 mins ago)
WASHINGTON -
ESPNU has been in town this week and, no, they aren’t here to cover the local college teams. They are in D.C. for high school football. The network will be nationally televising the Coolidge vs.Dunbar game, tonight at 8.

The Coolidge-Dunbar football game was chosen to be part of ESPNU’s 13 game national high school game of the week package. The goal is to showcase some of the top players and programs from Florida to California and this week the cross country trip stops in Washington.

I spoke to Burke Magnus, the VP and GM of ESPNU, about the dedication of time to high school sports on the network.

» Magnus on why to televise high school football: “We know that we have plenty of college football fans that follow the top high school players in the country wondering if they are going to end up playing for their favorite schools. This is our chance to showcase the best high school players and
programs nationwide. Giving Friday nights back to high school sports.”

» Magnus on the exposure of high school sports on a national level: “We are very aware of the importance of making sure that we show all aspects of the schools that we cover — not just the athletic side, but the academic and artistic sides as well. The vast majority of the kids that you will
see playing in these games won’t play in the NFL or in some cases even in D-1 college football but we think that high school sports is important for its spirit and tradition, so we are happy to have it on
ESPNU.”

Doug Bell will handle the play by play with ESPN Scouts Inc. recruiting analyst Tom Luginbill doing the color.


ACC action

The weekend’s ACC games has Maryland hosting N.C. State on MY20 at noon and ABC 7 at 3:30p.m. with Boston College at Florida State.


Before the Redskins game

» Plenty of great racing action for those who can’t make the drive down to Martinsville on Saturday,
you have the Kroger 200 on SPEED and then at 12:30 p.m. on NBC 4, the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup continues with the Subway 500. Radio for both days is on XM and the MRN
network.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer.
Examiner