OMAHA (KMTV) — It’s the first week of the high school football season, and while our local teams are hoping to make yards on the field, some of them are about to put in some miles.
Millard South and Creighton Prep will travel out of state for their first games…all for the love of competition.
- Millard South travels to Chandler, Arizona to play against Basha High School, while Creighton Prep travels to St. Louis to face DeSmet Jesuit.
- The schools are responsible for covering travel costs, either from their own resources or through fundraising.
- The video shows the teams training and the graphics show the distance they will cover.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MISSION:
(Millard South football coach) Ty Wisdom sees an opportunity to give his players a glimpse of the future.
“We’re going to have a lot of kids playing at the next level, and I mean, that’s what these guys do, right?” he said. “You get on a plane, you have to go, you have to be ready, so it’s going to be a big challenge for us, but it’s also going to be a great experience.”
The Patriots will travel more than 1,000 miles to face Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona.
A connection from Wisdom’s past: He was a former coach at Grand Canyon State.
“They’ve been one of the top teams in Arizona for the last five years,” Wisdom said. “They’re ranked in the top 60 nationally, so I thought, ‘What a great test.'”
“We don’t have another team in the state that’s as fast as them, so it’s going to be great for us to see where we are in the first game, but also how fast they are.”
The NSAA does not provide travel expenses for teams in or out of state, so Millard South has raised $45,000 to cover the costs.
“A lot of times it helps with scheduling,” Nate Neuhaus, NSAA deputy director, said of out-of-state games. “We have even numbers and odd numbers, and a lot of times we need out-of-state games to fulfill our schedule. So when the puzzle pieces fit together, it’s great.”
This is the first time Creighton Prep has traveled out of state for a football game.
The Junior Jays travel six and a half hours southeast to St. Louis to face DeSmet Jesuit.
Tim Johnk | Creighton Prep football coach: “We were always looking for a game that we could maybe play with another Jesuit high school,” said Tim Johnk, head coach of Creighton Prep, “and in these two years it just worked out that we were able to do that.”
Preparations begin early Friday morning for a competition on Saturday afternoon.
“You learn a lot about yourself,” Johnk said. “That’s what we want to see: When you play against someone of that caliber, your weaknesses will be exposed, but you’ll also get some strengths out of it.”
The school plans such opportunities and includes the costs in the budget.
Junior Jays AD Dr. Daniel Schinzel estimates the total cost of this trip to be between $15,000 and $20,000.
“When you can go somewhere with 64 guys to a college football game and travel as a team, it always has a little bit of a college feel to it,” Johnk said. “There’s a bonding element when you’re on the road, staying in a hotel room and doing things like that that’s really cool.”
With the NSAA’s home-and-home layout, Basha and DeSmet will be heading to the Metro next season.
Millard North, which hosts Cherry Creek from Colorado this year, will travel there in 2025.
