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Show ! II U By Ernie Milnor ) "'K" School sports in Utah is big business. . . as it is in other states. Utah is Known for its fine basketball teams in the high school level and one reason is that nearly : n) every school in the state participates partic-ipates in basketball. Some of the smaller schools have dropped baseball, base-ball, such as did Moab for a few years, and others have never competed com-peted in football. Rut basketball can be played with fewer players and as such, neativ everv school nuts e a team on the floor each week. i: Throughout the state of Utah, there are 90 ;:; schools listed as playing in the cage wars, give or ;. take one or two. With at least 15 plavers on the . varsity squad, that proves to be nearlv 1,350 varsitv le players in the state of Utah. On top of that figure, add a junior varsitv squad of ten players and you come up with 900 more for a ,i. total of 2,450. Most of the larger schools from the northern h; part of the state have sophomore teams also, that v play regular schedules. Therefore, it is unsafe to t assume that over 3,000 high school athletes are in-t. in-t. volved in basketball. t Out of the 1.350 varsitv plavers, onlv 19 have reached the magic number of 20.0 points per game L- average. Of these 19, three are from Region Ten. v The highest scorer in the state, both in average and in total points scored is Bailey of Escalante, hitting - the nets at a hot 32.6 points per game average. He - has scored 163 points in 5 region Eight games. ;: With 90 schools participating in high school ,;. baketball each week, there should be at least 45 games each week. Most schools are in comparable .- size of the teams that they plav against and as such :: the attendance records should be nearlv even throughout through-out each region. If each school only averaged 1,000 persons per game, statewide, then 45 thousand persons would view high school games each week in Utah. This does not include sophomore games. Prices for admittance to , games varies and it is not possible to come up with a total figure for money taken in each week. But if you figure oO cents per person,' which is a low : figure, then you would come up with an estimated S22.o00 per week. This is not an accurate figure since larger schools bring in more monev than do , smaller schools. But it gives an idea of what is pos-' sible. ,. This coming Friday, two of the best teams in the - state will tangle in Region Four competition. Provo , and Orem will do battle for the second time this vear. with Provo winning a thriller in their opening game, v Orem is ready to show the Bulldogs that they can stay with them and it should be a great game. The game will be played in BYU's basketball ,. facility and an estimated crowd in excess of 15.000 is expected to turn out for this one. That could pos-sibly pos-sibly be the largest crowd ever to witness a high school ball game in the countrv. Provo has a 6-0 record while Orem's only defeat came to the hands of the Provo squad. The attendance at the Moab games has not been extremely high this year. With a 12 win and 1 loss record, it seems that the Devils would have the house packed each week. : Again, Moab has one of the better records in (. the state, being beaten only by Payson in the Can-: Can-: yonlands Tourney. Since that time, Payson has not : fared so well, winning only 2 and losing 5 in Region ; Six play. |