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Imrem: The best football is closer than you think

Not surprisingly, the Bears' victory over the Buccaneers wasn't the most entertaining football game of the weekend.

Nor was Illinois' dramatic victory over Penn State, Northwestern's rout of Purdue or Notre Dame's gift to Louisville.

It wasn't any NFL or college game featuring big names like Aaron Rodgers, Melvin Gordon and Bill Belichick.

The most entertaining football game of the weekend was the state Class 8A semifinal that Stevenson won 7-3 over Glenbard West.

Even Hilltoppers fans might have appreciated the action if not the outcome.

Most nonpartisan fans probably didn't know the game was on TV until they started flicking around the dial.

What a treasure they found: There's something special about knowing the players are just like the kids who live next door, down the block or around the corner.

Other high school games in the suburbs and state were similarly noteworthy, but Stevenson-Glenbard West was the one that happened to hit home on TV.

It was a sloppy game filled with turnovers (9) and penalties (17), but, man, those young men sure were playing hard, getting knocked back by their own mistakes and getting up to push forward.

The players never looked like they were thinking of saving themselves for a new contract or business meetings later in life.

(Yes, that was a gratuitous shot at Derrick Rose.)

The impression was that alarmists must be wrong in predicting that football is destined to be buried under a heap of concussion studies and hospital charts. Enough athletic kids always will be willing to chance football's risks and enough parents always will permit them to do so.

The potential reward is to participate in a game like the Stevenson-Glenbard West classic.

Here were two groups of youngsters comprised of whites and blacks working together toward a common goal.

Rosters were filled with names that sounded Scandinavian, Irish, Italian, German, Polish and enough other nationalities to be a United Nations of sports.

In the end, the players either partied or mourned the outcome with teammates and classmates, hugging each other in ecstasy or consoling each other in agony.

Look, high school football isn't perfect. Playoff teams play too many games, body parts are stressed, and concussions can impact a player's entire life.

Despite the downside of football generally and prep football specifically, however, I'm still a sucker for the upside.

So young men play on and benefit from lessons in brotherhood, teamwork, adversity, resilience and so much more … sometimes all at once like in Stevenson vs. Glenbard West.

Take Stevenson: The Patriots floundered under the weight of their own errors until late in the fourth quarter.

Then their offense, trailing 3-0 with a quarterback who had thrown 4 interceptions, took over at its own 12-yard line.

That same quarterback with the exotic name of Willie Bourbon proceeded to lead Stevenson 88 yards for the game's only touchdown with less than a minute remaining.

Now take Glenbard West: The Hilltoppers responded by driving to Stevenson's 9-yard line before finally running out of magic.

What it came down to was each team couldn't get out of its own way and then played its best football when it mattered most.

Where else can youngsters learn lessons under the glare of a stadium filled with friends, family and faculty members who are counting on you?

Included in the pressure was that some on the losing team never will play football again while all of the winners will play for a championship.

That Class 8A title game and seven others will be contested this weekend on a Big Ten field in Champaign.

They too should be more compelling than anything the NFL and NCAA have to offer.

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