Cover-ing the WNY football preview
Mapping out the teams trying to take the road to The Ralph
With the Section VI playoffs expanded this season, it gives more teams the opportunity to go on a postseason run that earns them a trip to the championship games at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
So that's why we made that the theme to our wraparound cover to this year's high school football preview.
Designed by award-winning News staffers artist Dan Zakroczemski and Assistant Design Editor Vincent J. Chiaramonte, the map shows helmets of a sampling of Western New York's top teams as well as larger-than-life photographs of some notable returning players.
You wouldn't use that map to drive to the Ralph, right? Well, we're not using it to say these are the only good teams in Western New York -- it's just a general guideline and a collection of some of the top teams and players that our staff put together.
We'll have to wait -- about 10 weeks -- to find out who really gets to The Ralph. Which is really all the fun, right?
Section VI and the Monsignor Martin Association play their championships at The Ralph, and the helmets represented include the top 11 schools from those leagues in last year's final large school poll: Orchard Park, St. Francis, Sweet Home, Cheektowaga, Iroquois, Lancaster, Frontier, North Tonawanda, Grand Island, Kenmore East and Albion.
Also represented were the top seven small schools from last year's poll: Cardinal O'Hara, Depew, East Aurora, Fredonia, Southwestern, Cleveland Hill and Randolph.
And with this year's playoff road expanded, we threw in some teams that could be part of the mix: Kenmore West, Lockport, Maryvale, Starpoint and Lackawanna as well as Monsignor Martin runner-up Canisius.
The helmet designs were taken from News action photographs taken by staff photographers Mark Mulville, John Hickey and James P. McCoy.
Did you name all the helmets?
Front page (top right to bottom left): Albion and its purple 'A' is furthest East. Then there's an arc that hits Lockport and it's purple Lion, Lancaster's red Redskin helmet, Iroquois' red-and-white Chief and East Aurora's Blue Devil (even if its painted white).
Right in the middle (between the pictures of Orchard Park's Kyle Hoppy and Maryvale's Brooks Estarfaa) is the two-tone blue of Depew's Wildcats.
Back page: We'll take it from the top -- the top left, to be exact. Grand Island (and its Viking) should be easy.
Directly East is North Tonawanda and its blue-and-red Lumberjack. Slightly below, east to west, are Kenmore West (and another Blue Devil which is actually white), Cardinal O'Hara (a simple gold helmet) and Sweet Home (featuring its Panther).
Due south are a pair of simply painted "hats" -- Kenmore East has the blue stripe down the middle while Canisius' stays gold.
To the east are neighbors Cleveland Hill (the blue-and-gold design of college football's Michigan and Delaware), Cheektowaga (with the Warriors' arrow) and Maryvale (with the wing of a Flyer).
Take a look up north and find the white-and-red Spartans design of Starpoint.
Move back to the middle of the page and you'll see Lackawanna's classic grey-and-blue design, with Frontier's blue Falcon below and the maroon of Orchard Park to the east.
Slide down Lake Erie to Athol Springs and the St. Francis helmet -- or is that the San Francisco 49ers? Further down the shore would be the black and orange of FHS -- Fredonia High School.
Run a dive play down south and you'll find two red-and-white helmets for two of the Southern Tier's best: Southwestern (no logo) and Randolph (with it's jagged 'R').
The Harvard Cup teams aim for their own championship at All High Stadium, the 104th Harvard Cup. So while they didn't fit in with the cover theme, we featured that league's best in three-time defending champion McKinley and returning senior wideout Kevin Chillis.
