With 8 top-50 teams, Broward Showcase promises ‘biggest high school football event ever’
A tripleheader Saturday at St. Thomas Aquinas High School may well present the single best collection of high school football games to ever be played at one location on one day.
It’s only part of a historic weekend in South Florida.
Eight teams ranked in the top 50 of MaxPreps’ national rankings will be part of the inaugural Broward County High School Football National Showcase this week, including four Broward teams all taking on highly ranked out-of-state opponents
“It’s going to be a fun time, man,” said Hollywood Hills athletic director Kevin Perry, who organized the three-day event. “From what I’ve been told, it’s the biggest high school football event ever.”
The signature event will be the tripleheader Brian Piccolo Memorial Stadium, with 2 of 3 games airing on ESPN.
No. 5 St. Thomas Aquinas will kick off the tripleheader at noon by hosting No. 30 St. Joseph’s Prep from Philadelphia, then No. 19 Plantation American Heritage will face No. 25 Los Alamitos from California at 4 p.m. and No. 13 Chaminade-Madonna will close out the event by playing No. 17 St. John’s from Washington at 8 p.m.
No. 35 Cardinal Gibbons will also host No. 33 DeMatha from Hyattsville, Maryland, on Friday at 7 p.m. in Fort Lauderdale in the other top-50 matchup of the showcase.
The other three games are high profile matchups in their own right: Dillard, a Class 3M championship hopeful, will host Rock Creek Christian Academy from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on Friday at 7 p.m. in Fort Lauderdale; and Western, a Class 4M contender, will host a doubleheader Thursday in Davie with Stranahan facing Life Christian Academy from South Chesterfield, Virginia, at 5 p.m. and the Wildcats hosting Johns Creek from Georgia at 7:45 p.m.
The first two games of the doubleheader at Piccolo Stadium will air on ESPN. FloSports will broadcast the other five.
“It’s pretty cool for football fans from South Florida,” said cocah Dameon Jones, whose Lions open the year at No. 1 in the Miami Herald’s local rankings. “Getting these opponents to come down here is pretty cool.”
The idea actually stems from an event Perry organized when he was an assistant coach in Michigan. In 2016, he organized the Battle at the Big House, a three-day event, featuring 14 in-state teams playing high-profile games at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.
Now an AD in Florida, Perry wanted to do something similar to spotlight the teams in his new home.
“You always hear, Who’s got the best talent: Florida, Texas, California?” Perry said. “I’m like, Hey, I’ve got one way we can find out.”
This national showcase, Perry said, will give teams from across the country, “the whole college bowl game experience.” Organizers contracted enough sponsors to pay for visiting teams’ hotels and buses, plus three meals a day. Dave & Buster’s is one of the biggest sponsors for the event and will air all seven games at all its locations across the country this weekend, Perry said.
This is only a starting point, too. In the future, Perry would like to follow the same sort of model he did in Michigan and have all seven games at one location, perhaps Inter Miami CF’s DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.
The competition will also probably ramp up. Perry’s already hearing from teams about 2023.
“The teams that are interested next year,” Perry said, “are even bigger.”
Broward County National Showcase schedule
Thursday
Stranahan vs. Life Christian Academy (South Chesterfield, Va.), 5 p.m., FloSports (at Western)
Johns Creek (Ga.) at Western, 7:45 p.m., FloSports
Friday
DeMatha (Hyattsville, Md.) at Cardinal Gibbons, 7 p.m., FloSports
Rock Creek Christian Academy (Upper Marlboro, Md.) at Dillard, 7 p.m., FloSports
Saturday
St. Joseph’s Prep (Philadelphia) at St. Thomas Aquinas, noon, ESPN
American Heritage vs. Los Alamitos (Calif.), 4 p.m., ESPN (at St. Thomas Aquinas)
Chaminade-Madonna vs. St. John’s (Washington), 8 p.m., FloSports (at St. Thomas Aquinas)
