#TBT: 120 Years of Ithaca Football Wins
October 2, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The Ithaca football team has won 61 straight games dating to opening night 2010, a stretch that is the longest active streak in the U.S., second-longest in MHSAA history, longest to take place fully during the MHSAA playoff era, and three wins from cracking the the national all-time top 10 list.
But more than a century before the Yellowjackets began this era of invincibility, they were among those embracing the sport during its infancy in the late 1890s.
Research by the Ithaca Area Historical Society led to the uncovering of the above photo of the 1899 Ithaca High School football team and all but two of the players' names.
The Ithaca program has 376 victories dating back to the start of the 1950 season – and further research that is underway should show the team has well over 500 wins dating to its first team in 1895. Cadillac, with 512 victories, was 10th on Michigan high school football's all-time wins list heading into this season.
For some added perspective: The MHSAA was begun from a preceding organization during the 1924-25 school year. The first MHSAA playoffs were played in 1975. Ithaca's most recent varsity football loss came to Montague in a 2009 Division 6 Semifinal.
Football's Status
June 16, 2017
Football has enjoyed a status within our schools that is unmatched by any other sport.
It attracts more participants than any other interscholastic sport.
Unlike many other sports (think especially of ice hockey, lacrosse and soccer), football began in the high school setting and was not imported from community programs.
And until the past decade, football has not had to cope with out-of-season programs run by non-school groups and commercial entities that are so troublesome – think especially of basketball, ice hockey, soccer and volleyball, but really all sports except football, until recent years.
The growth of 7-on-7 passing leagues and tournaments is the most obvious concern as commercial interests move in to profit from a mostly unregulated summer environment, as began to occur in basketball 30 years ago and has spread to many other sports since.
The Olympic movement has fueled some of this as national governing bodies have engineered programs for younger athletes in efforts to increase medal counts on which the U.S. Olympic Committee bases funding.
The quixotic pursuit of college scholarships is another powerful stimulant; and while the NCAA could have banned its coaches from recruiting away from school venues, it has not done so; and non-school entities have begun to tailor their events toward convenient although costly recruiting venues.
We can expect these events to spread like an invasive species through football unless, learning from the past, the NCAA makes these events off-limits to its coaches, and/or organizations like ours across the country will not only regulate but also conduct programs during the summer.