High school football practice begins Monday, August 7, in Illinois, and we’re looking forward to another season of unprecedented radio coverage of the top programs in the area, large and small schools.
August 25 marks our seventh season of Red Zone high school football broadcasts. We air parts of two games every Friday night (main and secondary games), then eventually switch to Saturday when the playoff schedule dictates. Plus, we give frequent score updates from all the games around the area.
Last year, we called games right until the final week 14 championship, when Peoria High defeated Vernon Hills for the 5A title at the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium. Will head coach Tim Thornton, Illini recruit quarterback Coran Taylor and the Lions keep it rolling this season? Short answer: probably. Either way, we’ll be there to cover it.
You’ll hear a different, but familiar, voice in the main game’s broadcast this season. Longtime Peoria Pirates head coach and Red Zone color guy, Bruce Cowdrey, is moving with his family to the Kansas City area, where his wife, Melody, is already working as a hospital exec, not far from where they both grew up. His colorful commentary, knowledge and humor will be missed. He recently had heart surgery, and I wish him the best health possible moving forward.
Former Farmington and Illinois lineman, and longtime Peoria Pirates assistant coach, Tony Johnson will join me in the booth to provide color commentary this season. Tony’s a Cat exec whose well-known in the area for his business, football and community service, including starting the Arena Football League award-winning Treasure Life youth program during the Pirates era. He’s called games off and on in the area for a couple decades at a few radio stations, including with me over the past decade. We called the Richwoods state title game loss in 2011 (pic below) in the Red Zone’s first season.
Unique to the Red Zone broadcast is our secondary game coverage, anchored by Galesburg radio veteran Tom Meredith, now in his fifth season with the Red Zone team. Tom calls some live play by play and does scoring updates from the other big game that night. If the main game’s a blowout, we switch to Tom’s game.
Jason Glick returns as our producer to run the show behind the scenes and track the scores from all the area games that night from the GLO studio. Tyler Busch again tabulates the main game’s statistics, and E.J. Hendon is our sixth member, producing Tom’s secondary game scoring updates.
So while the high school football players will be sweating it out this month, trying to make their team’s starting lineup, we’ve got our experienced Red Zone lineup set. Join us when the Friday night lights go on, August 25th for the Red Zone high school football game(s) of the week on Peoria’s home for classic rock and football, 95.5, GLO.
Doc Watson
