OMAHA (KMTV) — It’s week one the high school football season, and while our local teams hope to put up yards on the field, a couple of them are about to rack up some miles.
Millard South and Creighton Prep will travel out of state for their first games… all for the love of competition.
- Millard South is traveling to Chandler, Arizona to play Basha High School, while Creighton Prep is traveling to St. Louis to face DeSmet Jesuit.
- The schools are responsible for covering travel costs, whether it’s from their own budgets or through fundraising.
- Video shows teams practicing and graphics depicting how far they will travel.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
(Millard South football coach) Ty Wisdom sees an opportunity to give his players a glimpse of the future.
“We’ll have a lot of kids go play at the next level, and I mean that’s what these guys do, right?” he said. “You get on a plane, you gotta go and you’ve gotta be ready, so it’ll be a great challenge for us but it’ll be a great experience too.”
The Patriots will travel more than 1,000 miles to face Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona.
A connection from wisdom’s past; he used to coach in the Grand Canyon State.
“They’ve been one of the top teams in Arizona for the last five years,” Wisdom said. “They’re a top 60 ranked national team, so I thought ‘what a great test.’
“The speed they have, we don’t have another team in the state near size-wise or speed-wise that they have. So it’s gonna be great for us just to see where we’re at game one but also just seeing that type of speed.”
The NSAA does not provide funding to teams for travel whether it’s in state or out of state, so Millard South raised $45,000 to cover costs.
“A lot of times it helps with scheduling,” NSAA Assistant Director Nate Neuhaus said of out-of-state games. “We have odd and even numbers, and many times we need out-of-state games to accommodate our schedules. So when the pieces of the puzzle come together it’s great.”
This will be Creighton Prep's first time traveling out of state for a football game.
The Junior Jays driving 6 and a half hours southeast to St. Louis to face DeSmet Jesuit.
Tim johnk | creighton prep football coach: “We’ve always kind of looked for a game that we could play that would be maybe with another Jesuit high school,” Creighton Prep head coach Tim Johnk said, “and it just happened to work out these two years to be able to go do that.”
Prep ships out early Friday morning for a Saturday afternoon contest.
“You learn a lot about yourself,” Johnk said. “That’s what we want to be able to see: when you play somebody of this caliber, they’ll expose your weaknesses, but you’ll also have some strengths come out of it too.”
The school plans for these types of opportunities and builds the expenses into (its) budget.
The Junior Jays’ A.D. Dr. Daniel Schinzel estimates $15,000 - $20,000 in total bills for this trip.
“Anytime you can take 64 guys to play a varsity football game somewhere and travel as a squad, it has a little bit of a college feel to it,” Johnk said. “There’s a bonding element in terms of going on the road, and staying in a hotel room and doing some things like that, which are really cool.”
With the home-and-home layout by the NSAA, Basha and DeSmet will come to the metro next season.
Meanwhile Millard North, which hosts Cherry Creek out of Colorado this year, will travel there in 2025.
