All-star game stretching area

Now in its ninth year, the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association East West All-Star Game continually broadens its horizons.

Game alumni like Mike Cox, Bruce Gradkowski and Shaheer McBride have gone on to play in the NFL. Ray Ventrone even made a tackle in the Super Bowl for the New England Patriots.

Unless there is a change in plans in the next few months, Erie Strong Vincent's Deonte Flemings will expand the game's scope to a new frontier: Louisiana.

Flemings, one of 68 high school seniors who arrived at the Blair County Convention Center Sunday morning to begin preparations for this year's East West Game, has signed a letter-of-intent with the legendary Grambling State Tigers. Although he'll spend a few months at North Carolina Tech Preparatory School in Charlotte, should he fulfill his commitment to Grambling, he'd be the first player from the game to play his college ball in Louisiana and the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

He'd also be making one of the farthest trips to a college of anyone to have competed in the game. This year's contest will be held at Mansion Park on Friday at 6 p.m.

"Nine chances out of 10, it might be my last time playing close to home, so that's why I'm trying to get all my relatives out here to see my last high school ball game, and cry a tear with me,'' Flemings said. "I'm looking forward to meeting all the guys. All the guys are really successful, really talented. If they weren't, they wouldn't be here.''

That its talent would now be reaching the SWAC is a feather in the cap of the game and the talent in Pennsylvania. SWAC schools have produced Walter Payton (Jackson State) and Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State), the NFL's former all-time leading rusher and all-time leading receiver.

Grambling is the most-storied football power in the conference, turning out four Pro Football Hall of Famers under the late Eddie Robinson, whom Penn State's Joe Paterno surpassed to become Division I college football's all-time winningest coach. That list doesn't even include No. 1 overall draft pick and Super Bowl-winning quarterback Doug Williams, now the school's athletic director.

"I met him,'' Flemings said. "He's a great person, a very intelligent guy.''

This year's game almost had its first Pac-10 player: Canon-McMillan lineman Alex Pihakis was all set to walk on at Arizona State. However, Delaware stepped in three weeks ago with an offer to bring him in as a preferred walk-on.

"It would have been cool to get away. With Arizona, you can't go wrong with that. Delaware just seemed a better chance for me to play,'' Pihakis said.

There will be other pioneers in this year's game. Pequea Valley receiver Sean Persch is the first player from his high school to be picked for the game. Athens kicker Shane Raupers is the first from Tioga County.

"I feel really honored, and I'm really happy that I can represent my high school team,'' said Persch, a former ice hockey player who took up football four years ago and was selected all-state twice. "I'm looking forward to not having to run around [to other positions] in practice and just being able to focus on receiver.''

East coach Mark Evans of Eastern Lebanon - better known as ELCO, is someone who needs no introduction to the East West Game. He was an assistant in 2002 and has an opportunity to become the first coach to win as both an assistant and a head coach.

"First class, there's no other way to describe this. From the first time to now, it hasn't changed. It's a first-class event all the way,'' Evans said.

Evans didn't think the decision to move the game from Saturday to Friday and eliminate a day of practice would have any real impact. The players will still spend an evening at DelGrosso's Amusement Park and an afternoon at the Hollidaysburg Veterans Home or Van Zandt Medical Center.

They'll also get to instruct and sign autographs at a youth clinic on Thursday. Flemmings, who has worked with young children in the past, and Persch both cited that as one of their biggest highlights of the week.

"I saw some of the highlights they were playing, and I saw they visited the [veterans] home and playing around with the kids. I'm going to school to be a teacher, so I really look forward to working with the kids,'' Persch said.