Staff file photo / Brian Yauger Warren JFK junior Antonio Smith runs for a gain against Champion during their season-opening contest this season. Smith has been a key piece of Kennedy’s offense this season running for just under 1,000 yards.

The third round of the Ohio High School Athletic Association football tournament features a trio of games involving all-area matchups. Tonight Ursuline and Canfield play at Bo Rein Stadium in Niles while Cardinal Mooney and South Range battle at Arrowhead Stadium in Girard.

On Saturday, Warren John F. Kennedy and Southern square off at Cardinal Stadium in Canfield.

While all-area playoff games always generate interest throughout the Mahoning Valley, this week’s lineup includes an extra layer of intrigue. All three contests feature a local public school pitted against a local parochial counterpart.

Canfield and Ursuline are meeting for just the third time, and for the first time since 1984. This marks the first-ever meeting for South Range-Mooney and JFK-Southern.

The public versus private debate is as old as the playoffs, which began 50 years ago this month. Do private schools own a competitive advantage over their public counterparts? Should there be a separate tournament for private schools? Has open enrollment evened the playing field?

A pair of former area head coaches who had extended stints at both public and private schools believe the current system provides an even playing field for all OHSAA member schools.

Dick Angle owns a lifetime record of 262-168-3. He coached at Ursuline for 18 years, leading the Irish to eight playoff appearances. Angle then took over a struggling Howland program, where he guided the school to nine playoff appearances in 15 years.

Angle says that his success at both Ursuline and Howland came down to dedication and desire from coaches, players, and especially the community.

“I’ve never been for separation, I’ve always believed that success comes down to what you want to put into a program,” Angle said. “It takes a lot to build a successful high school football program. You need thirty or more really good players. You need the time, the effort, and financial support from an entire community.

“Very few public schools really strive to win big. Going .500 is often an accepted goal. Even when we were at Howland, there were some within the building who didn’t care or didn’t want us to win big. But we came in at a time when kids at the school wanted to compete, and their families were committed to success.”

Angle noted that when he coached at Ursuline beginning in 1979, the vast majority of students were the product of the 11 feeder schools from the Youngstown Diocese.

“Today, there are hardly any feeder schools,” Angle said. “You have no choice but to sell your school to the public. It’s not recruiting, it’s presenting what you have to offer.

“It’s not a one-way street. Public schools do the same thing, and they should. Your Chaneys and your Fitch’s promote their strengths. They sell their programs through their success. A well-run program, public or private, promotes itself.”

Angle, who now resides in Florida, spent time in the area last month. During his visit, he attended the Chaney-Ursuline game, won by the Irish 30-27.

“It was a great game, Chaney was just as good as Ursuline if not better,” Angle said. “Chaney had a three-minute lull, otherwise they could have won. It just goes to show that there is plenty of success to go around in Youngstown if schools put forth the effort and resources.

“Schools like Mentor and Massillon, they have a plan. They want to challenge the best of the best. Other schools build a wall around their football program.”

Angle, who is a close friend of Mathews coach Bill Bohren, says that Bohren’s career success is proof that public schools can succeed on a large scale under the right circumstances.

“Everywhere Bill has gone, he has turned programs around,” Angle said. “He has a plan and he sticks to it, and it results in success. He has won everywhere he’s gone. That doesn’t happen by accident.”

Dennis Zolciak coached at Warren JFK for 14 years beginning in 1977. After going 6-14 in his first two years, Zolciak’s teams averaged 8.5 wins per season for the next 12 years. He finished with a 107-43 record, including six playoff appearances.

From 1991 to 1997, Zolciak coached at Twinsburg, where his teams went 50-24 with a pair of conference titles and three trips to the playoffs.

“I can honestly say that during my years at JFK we never thought of recruiting, we never actively pursued athletes at public schools,” Zolciak said. “We did have players from public schools come in because they wanted to be a part of our program. We also lost a lot of our junior high students to public schools.

“At JFK we had a starting quarterback leave his senior year to play at a public school. He and his parents felt that playing at a bigger school was a better option. It happens.”

Zolciak recalled a time when he coached at JFK and attended a year-end football banquet at Mount Carmel – a Niles parochial school that was considered a JFK feeder school. Also in attendance was the Niles McKinley High head football coach.

“I had to laugh, because he was there and neither of us thought much of it,” Zolciak said. “If I would have attended a Niles junior high football banquet, everyone would have viewed that as me trying to recruit public school players.”

Zolciak noted that while he was at Twinsburg, he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he lost student-athletes to nearby Walsh Jesuit or Bedford Chanel.

“I just maintained the same viewpoint as I had at Kennedy,” Zolciak said. “People make decisions for all sorts of reasons. You can’t control that and you shouldn’t waste time worrying about it.

“My goal was always to run a program in a way that made players want to stay, want to be part of something special. If you can create a winning culture, the rest will take care of itself.”

Tonight’s winners will all advance to regional title games in their respective divisions. The OHSAA tournament concludes the first weekend of December with the crowning of seven state champions.