Cinco Ranch was our destination today. Luckily, the weather warmed up for us, and I was able to make it through today. I still don't have warm weather clothes, and need to go buy some before it gets cold again and I freeze down here (Hi, Mom!).
Coach Clayton over at Cinco Ranch gave me a ring yesterday to let us know the practice times. We swung by mid way through practice, and he happily obliged our requests to film the practice and grab some interviews with some of the players. He was nice enough to take time out of his practice to answer the countless questions I had about football in Cinco Ranch, in the Houston area, and in Texas as a whole.
Cinco Ranch is in its 9th year of existence, and Coach Clayton has been there since the beginning. The school was created as a response to the rapidly growing population in the Katy area. Since then, two more schools have been established as the area of Katy continues to grow. It's quite remarkable how the population continues to rise. It makes one think of the superteams that would exist down here if there weren't as many schools as there currently area, and talent were more pooled together. The school populations are large (in the 2500 range), but not huge, considering some schools in Texas top 4000.
Kudos go to Coach Clayton. He was the first person to successfully explain to me exactly how the Texas state playoffs work. For as much as it has been fun going to the games we've gone to, I can only imagine the atmosphere at some of the playoff games in the states we've been in. A Texas 5A state semi finals or finals game with 20,000+ people must be pure insanity.
The feel I got from being around the team is that they definitely have something to prove. Katy is the long established football power, and Cinco Ranch is somewhat of the new kid on the block. They gave Katy everything they could handle last year. They had a half time lead, but Katy came back to win it in the fourth quarter. This time around, Cinco Ranch is hoping to seal the deal.
Tomorrow, Trevor and I are meeting with Houston high school guru Sam Khan to learn more about this rivalry from his perspective. Check back then..we should have today's video from Cinco Ranch uploaded.~SS