I was a little bummed out last weekend when the Wawasee Warriors lost.

See, my daughter cheers for Wawasee, so I've seen lots of their games over the past four years.

Wawasee had a fantastic football team this year. They were fun to watch. I have seen quite a few different high school football teams over the years, and this team was probably the most fun to watch of any of them.

And I got to know several of the guys on the team. They are great kids. I know that's a bit of a clich, but it was true of these kids.

Some coaches have to worry about the behavior of their kids off the field. Not coach Joe Rietveld.

These kids were well-mannered, hard-working and dedicated.

So it was really too bad they had to lose so soundly to Indianapolis Roncalli last week in the Class 4A State Championship.

But you know, once you get down there in open enrollment territory - well, let me quote the guys in my sports department - "things are just different."

Ask Fort Wayne Snider, a school from an open enrollment town. They got their hats handed to them by open-enrolled Warren Central in the 5A game.

Last year, powerhouse Penn, from South Bend, was down 50-zip at halftime to Warren Central.

I think the Warriors could have played better football last Saturday, no question. I've seem them play better football. But even if they played their best, it would be tough for them to beat a team from Indianapolis.

They have quite the talent pool around Indianapolis.

One of the defensive linemen for Roncalli, Patrick Kuntz, is mulling scholarship offers from no less than 10 schools, including Louisville, Michigan State, Duke, Indiana, Northwestern and Wisconsin.

Another Roncalli player, Jason Warner, has decided on Purdue.

Roncalli and other schools around Indianapolis work hard at football. They have excellent feeder programs and excellent traditions, no question.

Roncalli has won the state championship three times in a row now. And they've won seven times since their first state title in 1985. They were state runner-up in 1983. That 1985 game was against Wawasee, coincidentally.

No school has won more state football championships in any class than Roncalli.

And at Wawasee, we're making progress against Roncalli. In 1985, the score was 37-3. In 2004, the score was 35-10. At that rate, we should be able to take Roncalli to overtime by 2061.

My guess is that the majority of kids on their roster would have been Roncalli students regardless of enrollment guidelines.

And Roncalli would be formidable regardless of the open enrollment rule.

Having said that, however, wouldn't it be fun to get the addresses of all the kids on open enrollment teams and do a study to see how many of them actually live within the boundaries of the schools they attend?

Well, a couple years back, a Fort Wayne newspaper did just that. In basketball, it found that roughly a third of players in Fort Wayne Community Schools crossed high school boundary lines.

Open enrollment was initiated in Fort Wayne Community Schools and a half dozen other school districts statewide for academic and desegregation reasons. It allows kids to attend what they or their parents perceive to be a better school - to obtain a better education.

But the same newspaper survey found that among all students in the district, only one in 10 students crossed high school boundary lines. Seems the open enrollment concept works best for athletes.

Now, we could argue the merits of open enrollment, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Open enrollment already exists, so, for the sake of this argument, let's say there is nothing wrong with it.

What, then, becomes the problem is selectivity. I mean, why should only a handful of school districts have open enrollment?

And why should it be about academics? This is sports-crazed Indiana.

It should be about athletics.

The Indiana High School Athletic Association is on record as saying it doesn't like open enrollment too much, but it tolerates it.

If that's the case, then, by all means, let's have it everywhere - statewide.

Problem is, there is only one high school in lots of Indiana school districts.

We need a bigger talent pool. We need more high schools. How about open enrollment by county?

Yeah.

That way, all the kids in our county could choose which school they wanted to attend without having to pay transfer tuition. They would have to provide their own transportation.

Of course, the vast majority of kids would choose to attend the school where they could ride the bus - the school closest to home.

So as a practical matter, things wouldn't change much as far as school attendance.

But the really good athletes could pick the team for which they wanted to play. Think of the football team we could have then, eh?

The Times-Union sports guys are preparing to pick an All-Area Team.

Think how cool it would be if that team really existed. All the best players from the county on one team.

Of course, I would lobby for that team to be located at Wawasee, but Warsaw would probably win out since it's more centrally located.

We could start early, with county-wide pee-wee recruiting. By the time these kids hit high school, they will have been playing together for eight or 10 years. By then, all the best players will have been identified and shuffled to Warsaw.

Private sources could donate big bucks to attract a big-name coach.

And stadium?

Can you imagine the stadium we could have then? We could have 10,000 seats, a Jumbo-tron and a video scoreboard. We could probably even have some suites and luxury boxes. We could get local sponsors for that.

Once we got to that level, there would be Division 1 NCAA Scouts at every game.

All the county rivalries would go away, but that's OK, 'cause we'd really rip it up at tournament time, right?

Wrong.

I like it the way it is. I like the David and Goliath concept. It just makes victory that much sweeter.

I know last Saturday Warrior football players were feeling pretty down.

I hope by today they're feeling good about their season. They deserve to feel good about their season. They played for a state championship!

Win or lose, I couldn't have been more proud of the Wawasee football team.

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