TULSA — Allan Trimble couldn't believe it.
When the Jenks football coach led his team out of the tunnel and onto the field for the 2000 Jenks-Tulsa Union game, Trimble was struck speechless.
"I'll never forget that moment, coming out of the tunnel and just about losing my breath,” Trimble said Tuesday, just a few days before the 2007 edition of what has been called the greatest high school rivalry in the country.
That season, approximately 40,000 fans packed what was then known as Skelly Stadium (now Chapman Stadium), turning what had been just another rivalry game into a statewide event.
Kirk Fridrich was on the opposite sideline that season, as an assistant for the Redskins.
Fridrich's first sense of the craziness that would follow came when Union rolled up in its busses at 5:30, two hours before game time, and there was nowhere to park. The Union players had to wade through fans waiting in line to enter the stadium.
If there's any doubt this rivalry is different from any other around these parts, it went away Tuesday.
The two coaches and two players from both teams participated in a press conference at the University of Tulsa's Reynolds Center, complete with a logo-filled backdrop, television cameras and as big of a media horde as you'll ever see at a high school event.
The stage won't be new to either team.
For a few years, the game has had an official name (The Backyard Bowl) and a title sponsor (MidFirst Bank).
It might, though, be a bit bigger this time around.
The NFL Network is filming a documentary about the game that is expected to air Oct. 18 on Versus.
And the Cox Channel will blow it out even more on live television, dedicating four feeds — the regular Cox feed, one from each team's sideline and a wide shot of the entire field — to the game. Viewers can watch all four on Cox 993 and select which audio feed to hear.
Is this much hype really necessary for a game played by a bunch of teenage kids?
"I don't apologize for the attention this game gets,” Trimble said. "These are the kids we need to focus on. It's a great arena for us, and we celebrate that at both schools.”
The game, though, gets a lot of hype for one that decides nothing in th
