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The winners' week

Abilene High coach Steve Warren had the best quote of the week, best because it is a true statement.

"This has been unbelievable," he told a Friday night pep rally crowd of 4,000 at Shotwell Stadium. "This whole week has been awesome and then some."

Warren spoke with the mind, the experience, and the voice, of a professional athlete. When you sift through the stories in the week before a championship game, whether it's the Super Bowl, the BCS championship, the World Series, the College World Series, or prep championships like Abilene vs. Katy, it's a common theme: getting to the championship game is the real story.

I first became aware of this in writing about major league baseball. Players, managers and coaches kept saying the World Series is important, but it's important like a really good sauce on an entrée, the best gravy you ever had on (choosing a Texas measure of superlatives) a chicken-fried steak. The league championship is the chicken-fried steak. Win the National League or the American League pennant, you have won what really counts. It was a championship that took months, not one week. As Steve Warren said, it is a week to savor. There is nothing not to remember about this week. It's all good. Next week, well, someone will have won, and someone will have lost.

Based on their speed, defense, skill players, and penchant for getting better as the game goes on, I pick Abilene, by a score of 35-14. Whatever that score turns out to be, this week has been 100-to-nothing, for both sides.

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  • I am a journalist, educator, writing consultant and author, living in La Mesa, CA. I am a native of Texas, which shows in most of my work. I believe that anything is possible. When I was 35, I realized that the ideal life would be to have the imagination of a six-year-old, and the wisdom of a 65-year-old. I can still get to the imagination (as you can, simply by cutting away all the data you’ve learned from first grade on) and I now possess the wisdom of a 65-year-old. Being 65 can be unsettling – too late to plant trees and enjoy the shade – but the wisdom that comes with it is terrific compensation. I learned in 50th grade that, no matter how bad things get, there is always compensation. Now I am in the 60th grade, and I am learning things that I didn’t know in 59th. This September, I’ll start 61st grade, and learn things I don’t know now. To find what grade you’re in, start with the year you started 12th grade, and count up. My newest book is “Warbirds – How They Played the Game.” My new company is The Write Outsource, quality media writing on deadline, at www.writeoutsource.com. I am working on a book about the media, and I am about to revise my cookbook about home cooking on a tight budget, such as so many of us face at this time.
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