ESPN RISE

Editor's note: Doug Huff, one of just four media memebers inducted into the National High School Sports Hall of Fame, shares his experiences from four decades of covering high school athletics. In this week's installment of "Huff 'n Stuff," Huff takes us back to the origin of the national high school football rankings.

The Huff

National rankings of high school football teams have taken many forms over the years, and the lineup of those media organizations doing them seems to change every fall. They might be new to some, but actually, they have been around for eight decades.

The origins can be traced to 1927, when a 21-year-old Minnesota high school coach and official named Art Johlfs originated his one-person National Sports News Service.

At the end of each football season, Johlfs would spend hours in the Minneapolis or St. Paul library in search of information on the best football teams across the land. He also built up a network of hobbyists throughout the nation who would provide him with input on state championship teams and other contenders for ranking honors.

Johlfs didn't stop with newspaper clippings. He sought out film on many of the top teams from the University of Minnesota football offices. Then he would compile and distribute his end-of-the-season rankings.

In 1944, Johlfs expanded his rankings to include boys' basketball, and in 1975, he added girls' basketball.

I was one of the hobbyists who exchanged material with Johlfs during his final years of work in the early 1970s before he retired to Arizona and passed the torch of the National Sports News Service rankings to Barry Sollenberger in 1978.

Sollenberger, a former high school and college track athlete, was a high school sports historian and journalist who began publishing Arizona high school previews in 1971 and was the editor of the Joe Namath's National Prep Sports magazine in 1976-77 -- one of the pioneers in the industry.

One of Sollenberger's major additions to Johlf's work was to retroactively determine national football title claimants back to 1910. I worked with Sollenberger for three decades prior to his death in 2005. At that time, he was in his sixth year as the sports information director of the Arizona Interscholastic Association.

When I originated the first weekly national rankings that included regional rankings -- a top 10 in seven regions as the National Prep Poll distributed by World Features Syndicate and used on The Associated Press wire from 1987 to 1999 -- Sollenberger was one of our 35 panelists who provided input each week.

In 1999, I joined forces with publisher Andy Bark and editor Mark Tennis of Student Sports as they were starting up a ranking of teams that went 50 deep. We came up with the name FAB 50, and it has stuck.

When Sollenberger added duties with the Arizona high school organization, he turned over the original national rankings started by Johlfs to us. Since we now are with ESPN RISE, it's accurate to say the ESPN RISE FAB 50 is the continuation of national rankings that date back to 1927 and those libraries in the Twin Cities.

National high school rankings might not be new, and they might be subjective and subject to debate. But they do add public interest to high school sports and serve as a barometer for team performance.

The Stuff

Spotted: Will Smith, one of the world's biggest movie stars, was in the stands to watch his son Trey play in a sophomore game this past Friday night for Oaks Christian of Westlake Village, Calif., against Bakersfield Christian. Also making the trek to Bakersfield for the sophomore-varsity doubleheader were Joe Montana, father of Oaks Christian varsity quarterback Nick Montana, and Wayne Gretzky, father of Oaks Christian sophomore Trevor Gretzky. Nick Montana, who transferred over the summer from national powerhouse De La Salle of Concord, started his first game for the Lions and threw for three touchdowns in a 35-7 victory.

Coach of the Week: It had been 19 years since the fans at Broken Arrow High in Oklahoma could celebrate a win over Union of Tulsa, so there was plenty of pent up energy released after the team's 24-9 triumph this past Friday night. Broken Arrow not only knocked off the No. 31 team in the ESPN RISE FAB 50 before a crowd of 12,000, but it stamped itself as a team to beat in the Sooner State. Smack dab in the middle of the hollerin' was second-year coach Ron Lancaster, a veteran of Oklahoma prep football, known mostly for his success at Enid and Jenks in a career that has spanned three decades and 285 victories. Lancaster began his coaching career in the late 1970s in California. In fact, Lancaster's 59-3 record over four seasons from 1976 to 1980 at Cordova High of Rancho Cordova (near Sacramento) still is listed as the state's all-time best coaching record, according to CalHiSports.com. Lancaster's winning percentage at Cordova was 95.3 percent.

Team of the Week: Around the nation, Valley High of West Des Moines, Iowa, might be best known for producing Olympic gold-medal gymnast Shawn Johnson. Around Iowa, it's known just as much for football. Valley moved up to No. 1 in this week's Des Moines Register Class 4-A rankings after a 22-0 win last Friday over Dowling Catholic before more than 10,000 people. Both teams came into the matchup in the top 10 of the newspaper's rankings. Dowling Catholic had no answer for receiver Ryan Cawley, who caught seven passes for 99 yards and one touchdown. Running back Zach Cutkomp also sparked the Tigers by scoring on a 51-yard run on their first play from scrimmage.

Doug Huff is a senior editor of ESPN RISE and is a member of the National Federation Hall of Fame. He has been compiling national and regional rankings in multiple sports since 1987 and is credited as the founder of the national record book. Mark Tennis also contributed to this column.