There is something unique about the start of fall prep sports, football in particular.

Long ago — almost, it seems — in another life, I spent a large amount of time preparing to cover football when I was a sportswriter and then a sports editor at the Argus Observer in Ontario.

A lot was different back then. 

The internet wasn’t the powerful tool it was to become, and information didn’t swing across our coverage area fueled by Facebook and other digital platforms in a second the way it does now.

So, August for me back then was sort of a special month. The month meant work, of course, putting together all the schedules for the upcoming season and putting together the Argus Observer’s high school football preview magazine.

Occasionally, I miss those days in my youth when I had but only to focus on the small-town prep sports angle at the Argus. In a way, for me back then, the summer came to an end in August when I interviewed coaches and players and wrote preview stories regarding the upcoming football season.

It was hard work but I always felt a specific sense of pride when we were finished. That pride, though, is dwarfed by the gratification I collect now every August when I know our sports staffs are hard at work on EO Media Group’s Kickoff magazine.

And hard work are the key words. Our staffs — in Pendleton, Enterprise, La Grande, Baker City, Hermiston and John Day — put a tremendous amount of time into this product and that dedication pays off every year with a first-rate product.

This year is no exception. 

The special publication on local prep football is one that is both a major task and a labor of love. Not just for the newsrooms at our six papers, but also for the advertising staff in all of our markets who go out and secure the advertising dollars necessary to bring such a standout product to our readers. It is very much a team project.

Now that I no longer have my hands directly involved in the production of Kickoff, I am very much in the place of the reader. While I have responsibility for the product’s completion, I anxiously await the final product as any reader.

To me all of the ingredients that make our region so great are often evident on the gridiron at area high schools. Dedication, loyalty, hard work along with the notion that sometimes defeat is part of success.

I hope that readers will see this product as I do: One that is a premier product with lots of great stories and features about our local prep football teams, supported by the local business community.

I know how hard our collective staffs worked on it and I am looking forward to reading it. Look for it in the Thursday, Aug. 31, issue of The Observer.