Each team has had at least a couple of scrimmages, but the first public showcases of high school football are tonight with the Victoryswap.com jamboree at Finley Stadium and the Valley jamboree at Whitwell.

“Some people think they’re a waste of time, but I like it and if I was a player I’d love it,” first-year Soddy-Daisy coach E.K. Slaughter said. “The jamboree gives you a little more time to get used to communicating — talking on the headsets — and it’s another chance to work out any kinks.”

The jamboree at Finley will have five quarters including 10 teams starting at 7 tonight and six matchups with 12 teams beginning at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The one-night Valley jamboree starts at 7 EDT this evening.

“I like the jamboree because it is a trial run for sideline organization in a game-type atmosphere where you’re getting in plays on a clock,” McCallie coach Rick Whitt said. “It gets your kids used to game situations. You worry about injuries, but players can get injured just as easily in practice. It’s a pretty good thing for the kids.”

It is a chance for the kids to get under the lights with officials in a game situation, Notre Dame coach Charlie Wiggins added.

“That’s a plus, although it can be a Catch-22 if somebody gets hurt,” he said. “The jamborees are good because you go against people you normally wouldn’t play.”

While it is a showcase, few teams will show much scheme-wise.

“We’ll probably have two or three running plays and two or three passing plays,” Wiggins said. “It will be pretty vanilla, very base stuff, but the jamboree gives you another evaluation of a kid that might be on the bubble for a starting position.”

Even getting to the jamboree site is a plus, according to Hixson coach Houston White and Bradley Central coach Damon Floyd.

“It’s worth the effort to get the kids on the bus and get them introduced to a routine of traveling and what we expect of them while we’re traveling,” said White, who plans to watch tonight even though his team doesn’t play until Saturday. “Every quarter Friday night has a team we’ll play during the year, so we’ll watch. We may see just one kid on each team that we haven’t seen, but you can get a feel for how they look in game situations.”

Bradley will have offensive, defensive and position meetings before getting on the bus.

“We’ll probably have a pregame meal, and everybody will be learning the routine of when we get taped and when we leave plus the actual warm-up process,” Floyd said.

Slaughter will be in his first jamboree as a head coach but said he has had no case of nerves.

“We’re going to be Air Raid ’08. We’re going to throw the ball all over the place,” he said.

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