It's about 10 days until the start of fall sports practices here in Maine but in Texas - the heartland of high school football - high school teams are in their first day of contact drills after starting practices on Monday.

If you're like me and went between two televised NFL preseason games last night, you're probably ready for football season. Here's something to whet your appetite from ESPN, a (lengthy) story about high school football in Barrow, Alaska, just a few miles south of the North Pole. Try Google-mapping it sometime.

The Real Frozen Tundra.

If you read today's story on fundraising and the 19th Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl, you're probably wondering what exactly all that money goes towards.

The money goes towards the Shriners Hospitals for Children, a 22-hospital system that provides orthopaedic care, burn care, spinal-cord injury care and cleft palate care.

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It's that time of year again ... and more than 100 football players and coaches have congregated in Hebron for the week leading up to the 19th Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl.

The annual game showcases the top high school football graduates and raises money for the Shriners Hospitals and its burn centers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Gardiner has appointed Jim Palmer as its new football coach. Palmer has been with the Gardiner program since 1995 was the offensive coordinator for the past five years.

Palmer replaces Matt Brown, who resigned in March after the Tigers won the 2007 Class B championship.