Okay folks, gather ’round. Today was one of those “I just gotta figure this out” days. My nephew moved up to the Northeast this year, super into football, and I suddenly got roped into finding where all his games are. Figured other folks must need this too, so why not try building a quick schedule finder? Yeah, thought it’d be easy. Spoiler: It wasn’t.
Started With The Obvious: Google
Hopped on my laptop first thing. Typed in something like “Northeast High School Football Schedule 2023”. What popped up? Pure chaos. A couple of news sites pretending they had the schedule, but really just listing a few big rivalry games. Mostly ads for sports betting or equipment stores trying to sell me helmets. Total dead end. Not a single actual, complete schedule.
Then, Off to The School Websites
Figured, “Duh, the schools themselves must have it posted.” Clicked on the website for Northeast High. Navigated forever. Found the Athletics section buried under “Student Life.” Sports listings… Football… Season… Annnnd… Nothing. A picture of the team. Contact info for the coach. Maybe a PDF from last season. Frustration level rising. Tried another school’s site. Same mess. Some had schedules, but buried in totally different sections. One listed it under “News & Events” from three months ago. Found the schedules, but it was only for home games. Useless for finding stuff near me!
- Needed to know all the games, everywhere.
- Had to cover multiple schools.
- Needed dates AND locations.
- Why was this so hard?!
Remembered Those Aggregation Sites
Okay, deep breath. Thought maybe those big sports sites collect this stuff. You know the ones. Went to one. Searched for “Northeast High School”. Cool, found the team page! Clicked “Schedule.” Awesome! Then… nada. “Schedule Coming Soon!” Or worse, “No events scheduled.” Looked at the date – it was definitely during season. Tried another big site. Same. Exact. Thing. Utterly blank where the info should be. It was like they just forgot to add the data.
Local Papers? Local Radio?
Got desperate. Scoured local newspaper websites. Found maybe one article previewing the season start, listing the first couple of games for one team. Radio station sites? Zip. Community bulletin boards online? More ads for yard sales than football. Basically useless.
The Big Break? School District Pages!
Finally, almost gave up. Then I thought, “Maybe the district office has to organize this stuff?” Did another search, this time for “Northeast Independent School District Athletics.” Found the main athletics page. Clicked “Sports Schedules.” Selected “Football Varsity” from a dropdown. And there it was. A calendar view! Grid format! List view! All the games! All the schools! Dates, times, and locations! Home and away! Opponent names! Seriously hit the jackpot.
That was the key. Forget individual school sites. Forget national sports sites. Forget Google. For Northeast football schedules? Go straight to the source the schools actually feed their info to: the District Athletics site.
Saved it as a bookmark immediately. Told my sister. Problem solved… after way more effort than any reasonable person should have to spend figuring out where kids play ball on a Friday night. Lesson learned: start at the district level next time! Now I can finally plan which muddy field to stand on next weekend.
