Border Bowl to feature 9 Div. 1 players

Organizers say this year’s Second Annual National Guard Border Bowl, which is scheduled for Jan. 17 and will be telecast on live television, is expected to be more competitive than last year with nine division one signees on the Tennessee squad and six on Kentucky’s squad.

“Our mission is to give the kids of eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee an opportunity to play,” Rich Prewitt, one of the organizers recently told the Williamsburg Kiwanis Club.

“The only high schools that we draw children from are kids on our high school teams east of I-75.”
About 300 senior players applied to play on this year’s teams, each of which will have 52 players.
Prewitt noted that Kentucky’s team features three players from Whitley County High School and three players from Williamsburg High School.

One major change this year is that the game will be televised live on WYMT in Kentucky and on a station in Tennessee that hasn’t been determined yet, according to Andy Croley, another Border Bowl organizer.

Prewitt said the Border Bowl came about last year after Tennessee and Kentucky decided to discontinue their annual high school football all-star game that was traditionally held in July at either Lexington or Knoxville.

“There was a committee of local people that picked up on that idea and took it. We kind of went out on a limb last year, because we didn’t know where we were going,” Prewitt said.

Prewitt said the game was so successful last year that the high school athletic associations of both states are reportedly trying to figure out a way to get it back.

Last year’s budget for the event was about $45,000, and this year that amount has doubled.

“The National Guard was so impressed with it last year that they have made a sizeable contribution,” Prewitt said.
Players will arrive for the 2009 National Guard Border Bowl on Wednesday, Jan. 14, and practice for three days.
On that Friday night, there will be a banquet at the Williamsburg Tourism and Convention Center with what Prewitt calls “some big name NFL players” coming to the banquet.

On the morning of the event, there will be a 5-K fun run-walk followed by kick-off at 1 p.m.

“Last year the Border Bowl actually filled James Taylor Stadium, which I think shocked a lot of people. There wasn’t a seat to be found,” Prewitt noted. “It was a great day in the community.

“There wasn’t a motel room in Jellico, Williamsburg or Corbin that wasn’t taken the night before. It brought a lot of business in I’m sure to the local restaurants and that sort of thing.”

Prewitt said the 2008 Border Bowl also proved beneficial to local universities and players.

In addition to giving the students one more chance to play high school football, the University of the Cumberlands signed 12 of the participants to football scholarships.

“There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 mountain kids that got football scholarships that might not have if it hadn’t been for the Border Bowl,” Prewitt added.