After nearly 50 years, football is making a comeback at this Châteauguay, Que., high school

A high school in Châteauguay, Que., is getting ready for some high school football. After five decades, the Blazers are back. As a matter of fact, the last time Howard S. Billings sent a football team on the field, they weren't even called the Blazers.

"Kids are running up to me 'Coach, coach, coach. Is it true? Is it true? Is it true?'" said Luc Pelland, who will guide the school's first football team since way back when Pierre Elliott Trudeau was prime minister and gasoline cost about 39 cents per gallon (Canada didn't change to the metric system until a year later).

Pelland is used to the x's and o's of coaching, having held a whistle for both McGill and Concordia universities' football teams among others, but he says organizing a team from the ground up is new to him.

"It's an exciting challenge. We are going to build the culture. There's been a lot of negative news right now with the culture on some of the teams with hazing and all that and we get to start from scratch and build that culture and we'll be inclusive."

Pelland says Blazer fever is already spreading across the school.

"Even from our other teachers who have ideas, you know, Home Ec 'we want to do their food' AV (audio-video) 'we want to film and do video.' So there's already a cross-curricular kind of excitement from the other teachers, too."

Howard S. Billings turfed its football program after the 1974 season. The man who coached until the final whistle, Larry Tomlinson, said it made sense at the time because back then, scheduling conflicts meant local players in Chateauguay had to choose between high school football or the city team.

Tomlinson said both programs were suffering because they were competing against one another to recruit players.

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