All-star football game undergoing changes
A major change to the annual BeeGraphix Football Classic nearly happened last year but time wouldn’t allow it.
However, what will be a new-look all-star football game is scheduled for June 13 at Trinity Middle School’s Hiller Field, if it’s not wiped off the schedule by the coronavirus pandemic.
The game will pit players from teams in the Tri-County Football Coaches’ Association against those from the Westmoreland County Coaches’ Association, creating for what McGuffey athletic director and football coach Ed Dalton believes will be a much better game than in years past.
“I think it was supply and demand,” said Dalton, who is also the Tri-County Football Coaches’ Association president. “The rosters hadn’t been quite what they used to be. It used to be easy to assemble two teams of really good players. In the last five or 10 years we didn’t have a roster size to sustain the game within our own area.”
In previous BeeGraphix all-star games, the 26 teams that make up the TCFCA were separated geographically and would play one another in a North versus South format. The all-star game was played until last year when it was canceled because of a lack of players.
Dalton approached Larry Sellitto, president of the Westmoreland County Coaches’ Association, to try constructing a last-minute game in 2019. The two remained in conversation about the possibility, an idea that both associations were in favor of.
“You need at least 30 players on each team to do a good job with it,” Dalton said. “We wanted it to stay as an all-star game. We didn’t want the quality to dip down. We wanted the quality of the game to be like when this game was first started.”
It is now called the BeeGraphix Great 38 game, each team constructed with 38 players.
The Westmoreland team will be players from Belle Vernon, Burrell, Derry, Franklin Regional, Greensburg Central Catholic, Greensburg Salem, Hempfield, Jeannette, Kiski Area, Kiski School, Latrobe, Ligonier Valley, Mt. Pleasant, Norwin, Penn-Trafford, Southmoreland and Valley.
Burgettstown’s Mark Druga will coach the Tri-County team.
The rosters are expected to be finalized in the coming days.
“I look at what our roster could be,” Dalton said. “The coaches selected to the game graded every player and ranked them. Obviously, the COVID-19 could be a gamechanger to everything. But we could have a really good roster.”