Southern Columbia
Maintaining A Champion
By Terry Rodgers

In east-central Pennsylvania, south of the Susquehanna River, lies the small blue collar town of Catawissa. Southwest of town sits a high school by the name of Southern Columbia… and a tradition like no other in the state.

The Tigers, as they are called, finished their 2007 football campaign with nine wins and two losses, falling in the first round of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association class A playoffs to Line Mountain High School.

"It brings on a new challenge for this next season because we are in an unusual situation going in to a season where we did not compete for the state title the previous year," Southern Columbia head coach Jim Roth said.

That's right, he said "an unusual situation."

Understand that the 22-17 defeat to Line Mountain on Nov. 10 not only ended the Tigers season, it ended a historic dynasty.

Southern Columbia entered the game on an unprecedented streak of 16 straight district titles, 10 league championships, nine consecutive eastern state titles and five consecutive PIAA class A state championships.

Until the loss, the Tigers had played in all but one state championship game since 1994, the year they won their first title with Roth.

To maintain that level of consistency, Roth said his program relies on three basic principles - dedication, discipline and most important, respect.

"There has to be a lot of respect," he said. "That works both ways. I don't think you can command respect without earning it."

Over his 24 years as head coach Roth has compiled a record of 278-44-2 and his teams earned their respect the hard way, by playing superior competition.

The Tigers competed in the PIAA Division IV conference over the course of their amazing run, but this coming year will transition to the newly formed Heartland Conference.

Both conferences consist of teams from three different state classifications: A, AA and AAA. According to Roth, this invariably has his team playing a double-A regular season schedule while labeled a single-A school.

He said he feels this serves as an advantage when playoffs arrive.

His players agree.

"It makes it a lot easier for us in terms of teams we will be playing against," said former Southern quarterback Dan Latorre (2002-2004), now the starting QB for Bloomsburg University.

"We are playing strong quality double- and triple-A teams (in the regular season)," said former Tigers star running back Henry Hynoski. "If we are handling bigger schools like that, it's about the same type of competition as some of the best single-A teams in the state."

"It seemed like when we got to the playoffs and we were playing teams at our own level it helped us," said former Tigers standout lineman Josh Marks. "We felt like we were a notch better and we already played teams better than these guys."

Hynoski and Marks dominated in their four years as starters (2003-2006) - their teams compiled a 58-3 record and won four state titles.

The former is currently a backup full back at Pitt and the latter a reserve guard with Penn State. Both are redshirt freshman with their respective programs, and both have bright futures ahead.

Just as playing in the state title game became an annual event for Southern, so too was meeting Rochester High School in the game.

From 1998 to 2004 these two teams met five times in the championship, Rochester prevailed in the first three contests but Southern finally triumphed in 2002 and began their unbelievable streak of five straight state titles.

"They (Rochester) were our gauge for us determining what we had to do to get a little bit better in certain areas and get over the hump, so to speak," Roth said.

"There are no other two schools that have even come close to the amounts of times we played in the state finals," he continued. "To have a rivalry in the state championship game is an unbelievable thing, and that's basically what we had."

With the type of dominance experienced by such a small school, this tradition is not lost on players from year to year.

"It all trickles down from the guys who started it (the tradition)," Hynoski said. "Every year we all come out dedicated and ready to work with a common goal."

As Southern was busy reaching their goal, their success was breeding criticism.

Grumbling around the state surfaced suggesting that Southern should move up in classification because they have been so dominant in their division.

Roth dismisses the idea and said the school is a legitimate class A school and his players should not be punished because the program has such a tradition of winning.

Also, his program does in the regular season what many teams in the state do not by playing larger schools.

This, theoretically, should actually make it harder for Southern to reach the playoffs.

Despite the setback of a year ago, Roth's team will continue to play superior competition as they strive to return to the title game.

This season, for example his squad plays two AAA teams, seven AA opponents and only one class A team.

"It is more out of a desire to play a tougher schedule," Roth said. "Along with the fact that, to be quite honest, there are a lot of class A schools that would rather not play us."

With a history like this one, who can blame them?