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.