SCHOLASTIC NOTEBOOK Fan's love of the game results in Pennsylvania football guide

The book lists every all-state team since 1939.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
There has never been a definitive book detailing Pennsylvania high school football statistics and all-state teams -- until now.
Rich Vetock, an Ebensburg businessman and avid high school football fan, compiled the Pennsylvania Football News Resource Guide, an expanded version of a book that also includes the schedule of every high school football team in the state.
One of the main features of the 165-plus page guide is the listing of every Associated Press all-state football team since the first team was chosen in 1939. Vetock, 60, spent countless hours looking at microfilm of old newspaper clippings in compiling the list.
"I don't know how many hours I put in on this," Vetock said. "I made seven trips to Penn State to the library there, 25 to Johnstown and 10 to Altoona. I don't know, maybe 150 or 200 hours just doing that.
"I started doing it in January and finished up at the end of July. The tough part was finding when the all-state teams were published. One year it would be around the first of December and the next it might not have been until the middle of the month, so I had to go through every day in the microfilm until I found it."
Taking the time
This is the first time anyone has compiled a list of each of the all-state teams, which have been selected continuously for 63 years. For years, players in all classes were considered for a single all-state team, but the team was split into separate divisions for Big School and Small School players in 1988.
The Pennsylvania Football News Resource Guide also contains a list for schools with 500 or more victories, state and district coaches of the year along with Pennsylvania and national high school football records, and the Pennsylvania Football News' own all-state teams, which have been picked since 1998.
Vetock is the first to acknowledge the state records are unofficial because the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body of scholastic athletics in the state, has never kept football records.
While doing his research on the all-state teams, Vetock was surprised by some of the players who didn't make the AP all-state first team.
"George Blanda wasn't on an all-state team and neither was Jim Kelly. That blew my mind," Vetock said. "Joe Montana was only second team. It is almost as interesting to see who isn't on it as to see who is."