Sports360AZ
Written by Sports360AZ intern Eric Matsumoto.
Basha High School will begin its 2024 football season on August 30 at home against Millard South, marking the first time a Nebraska high school team has played a regular season game in Arizona.
Millard South head coach Ty Wisdom knows the area well, having previously coached at Horizon and Desert Vista in the Valley from 2016-2021. His familiarity with both Arizona and Chris McDonald, Basha head coach for the past six seasons, helped to create this unprecedented match up.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Basha, and what Chris has built there is pretty phenomenal,” Wisdom said. “I’m from Nebraska but obviously having coached out in Arizona I know what kind of football it is out there. A Nebraska school has never done this before so I thought, ‘What a great opportunity to travel across the country and play a great football team.'”
Of course, out of state games are not uncommon in high school football, including Basha’s week four game in California against Mission Viejo. However, most of the time, even out of state contests still take place between neighboring states, rather than with two opponents from different parts of the country.
“I think the other thing too is it’s kind of new,” McDonald said. “There’s a lot of out of state games that are played every year but there’s really not out of state games where you have a Midwest team [playing] a west team, that doesn’t happen a lot. It’s something new. It’s something fresh.”
Wisdom and McDonald plan to have Basha travel up to Omaha in 2025 to start a two year cycle. In addition to building a friendly rivalry, the coaches hope it will help the players begin to understand the grind of what college and pro football will be.
“It gets kids ready for the next level,” Wisdom said. “That’s what you’re going to be doing week in and week out as far as travel goes…[It’s] just a really good opportunity to go play a great team from another state and really be able to sit back and look and see where you’re at.”
The game is more than just a fun rivalry and homecoming for Wisdom, though. Basha and Millard South were both 10-2 during the 2023 regular season and both made it to the semi finals of their respective playoffs, so the match up will be a good test for both teams to kick off the season.
“No matter who you play from wherever around the country or your local school, I’m about competing and I’m about trying to play the best,” McDonald said. “I think that [with] what Coach Wisdom has done there in a short span and in Omaha, I think Millard South is one of the teams that has an opportunity to win a state title in Nebraska”
Both teams hope to use the first game of 2024 to spark excitement for both their schools’ seasons, and the possibility of more unique games in the future.
“It’s obviously unique and new to our kids, it’s probably new to the Arizona community to have a Nebraska team come out here,” McDonald said. “But I think that at the end of the day, we’re both good teams and we want to use this game to help each other get better and springboard into the rest of our season.”
