Can you smell it? The 2010 Alabama High School football season is almost here. To be more precise, 49 days and a little over 10 hours as of writing this blog.

As a sportswriter in the state of Alabama, I am a member of the Alabama Sportswriters Association, the ASWA. We are already gathering info from our areas of coverage to be posted and voting soon for the preseason poll. The run date for the preseason poll will be the Sunday before the start of practice — Aug. 1. So that means fall practice will begin Monday, Aug. 2.

W.S. Neal will get football started in our area first when they take on Opp at home in the Kickoff preseason classic Aug. 20.

The Eagles will also start their season on a Thursday this year, Aug. 26 when they take on Flomaton.

T.R. Miller will follow that Friday with a game against county rival Escambia County.

It is almost here people!

In other news, our All Star season is in full swing. We have already had one district champion in Escambia County’s 9-10 team, and Brewton’s 11-12 team was runnerup last night in Opp.

Brewton’s 10-11 team had no district opponents so they went straight to state.

Tonight in Brewton at 5:30 p.m., the 15-year-old Babe Ruth team will take on Monroe County in a doubleheader. Tomorrow, the 13s will play Atmore in a 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. doubleheader.

Escambia County’s district champs will begin play Saturday in Jackson. I have been to several games already and have plenty more to go to. If you can not make it to the games, I have been keeping Facebook and Twitter users updated via my pages (robinsonakr on Twitter) inning by inning and final scores on our Brewton Standard pages.

Congrats to all our local teams.

Until we meet again here or out in the world of sports, God bless.