How the 'Hounds went from Minnesota to Texas

Now that the I's are finally dotted and the T's are finally crossed, Fort Scott Community College's football team will be going to Texas for its post-season bowl appearance for the second time in three seasons.

Fort Scott has officially accepted the invitation to the C.H.A.M.P.S. Heart of Texas Bowl to be held Dec. 6 at Bulldawg Stadium in Copperas Cove, Texas. This will be the second appearance in this bowl in the past three years for the Greyhounds, who lost to Kilgore College in the 2006 edition.

Blinn College, Fort Scott's opponent in this year's contest, got a jump start on the announcement, posting it on its Web site Monday afternoon. FSCC made a formal announcement Tuesday afternoon and Heart of Texas Bowl officials released information to the Fort Scott Tribune Wednesday afternoon.

In the final NJCAA/jcfootball.com poll of the regular season, Blinn moved up one spot to No. 5 while Fort Scott settles in at No. 14.

According to FSCC's press release, the Greyhounds were invited to attend the first North Star Bowl in Rochester, Minn, a planned doubleheader that is scheduled for Saturday. FSCC believed at the time of the offer that this was going to be the Greyhounds' best opportunity for a bowl game and accepted.

The release states that an opponent had been selected by the North Star Bowl -- word had been that it was Hutchinson, but this was not confirmed in the release -- but that the other team eventually declined in the invitation. Bowl officials continued to try to find an opponent for the Greyhounds, but schools in Mississippi, Arizona, and Texas all had concerns about the cost for such a long trip. With no opponent, FSCC started to look at other options for a bowl in case the North Star Bowl didn't come to fruition.

Last Saturday, in the Southwest Junior College Football Conference Championship Game, former No. 1 Navarro lost to then No. 6 Blinn, 49-24. By winning that game, Blinn received an automatic bid for the Heart of Texas Bowl. Fort Scott was then offered an invitation since it had finished in second place in Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference during the regular season. The North Star Bowl, unable to find an opponent for FSCC in their bowl, let Fort Scott out of the contract and decided to only host one bowl game in Rochester this year. FSCC then accepted the invitation to play in the Heart of Texas Bowl.

This is FSCC's third consecutive bowl game. This year's sophomore class is attempting to win its 18th game in two seasons and hopefully end up with two top-15 finishes in the final polls.

The FSCC Football team needs to raise funding for the trip to the Heart of Texas Bowl. The goal is to raise $250 for each player. To find out more information about the fundraising, contact head coach Jeff Sims or assistant coach Eddie Brown at (620) 223-2700.

The Heart of Texas Bowl is one of only a handful of National Junior College Athletic Association match-ups. In the past, the H.O.T. Bowl has featured teams from Kansas, Minnesota and Mississippi. Past Jayhawk Conference attendees include Coffeyville in 2001, Hutchinson in 2004, and Dodge City in 2005.

Last season, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College defeated Kilgore, 62-28, a convincing enough victory to impress voters into giving MGCCC a share of the national championship along with Butler, which beat Snow in the Top of the Mountains Bowl in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Advance tickets for the H.O.T. Bowl are available now for $6 for adults and $3 for children 12 and under. To order, call (254) 547-4111. The day of the game, tickets will be $8 for adults and $5 for children. All military personnel and those persons with an ID card are admitted to the H.O.T. Bowl free of charge.

A banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 in the Copperas Cove High School Cafeteria. The banquet is open to the public and everyone is invited to attend and welcome the teams from Blinn and Fort Scott,

Tickets are $10 per person and include dinner and entertainment. Recording artist Neal Sharpe will provide entertainment. Tickets are on sale at the Copperas Cove High School Athletic Annex and a limited number will be available at the door.

Proceeds from the bowl benefit C.H.A.M.P.S. -- Communities Helping Americans Mature, Progress and Succeed -- a local program that seeks to reward all students who take a stand against the illicit use of drugs and alcohol. C.H.A.M.P.S. provides education about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, promotes community service works and social interactions between all groups. The C.H.A.M.P.S. program is a division of America's Drug Free Productions, a 501 c 3 organization.

NOTES -- Navarro was shut out of the bowl picture because there are not enough slots available due to conference tie ins. Another bowl game in Texas, the Pilgrims Pride Bowl Classic, would have been an ideal destination for the Bulldogs but that bowl ceased operations earlier this year for financial reasons....

Hutchinson will also not attend a bowl despite finishing as the runner-up in the Region VI Playoffs. The Valley of the Sun Bowl might have been a good destination, but that bowl chose No. 5 Harper (Ill.), the Midwest Football Conference East Division champion, to face No. 8 Phoenix.

Harper had an automatic bid to the feature game of the Graphic Edge Bowl doubleheader in Cedar Falls, Iowa, but opted out to face Phoenix, which automatically qualified for the Valley of the Sun Bowl as the highest-ranked team in Arizona....

Snow and Butler will face off in the Top of the Mountains Bowl for the second consecutive season. Snow (11-0) is one of only two undefeated teams left in the NJCAA. No. 10 Dean (Mass., 10-0) is the other.

The T.O.T.M.B. will be played at the home stadium of Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer. The stadium opened earlier this year. Previous Top of the Mountain Bowls had been played at the University of Utah....

The Graphic Edge Bowl, to be held this Sunday, chose Dean to face No. 16 Iowa Central in its feature game. Iowa Central received an automatic bid as the champion of the Midwest Football Conference West Division. No. 18 Ellsworth, MFC West runner-up, faces unranked MFC East runner-up DuPage in the first game of the doubleheader....

The North Star Bowl's only game will feature No. 20 Rochester Tech against unranked Lackawanna, Pa. Rochester Tech lost a coin-toss tie-breaker and didn't make the Minnesota playoffs. Lackawanna had been ranked earlier in the season but has lost consecutive games to Dean and Georgia Military the past two weeks.

With Rochester in the North Star Bowl, this means Minnesota's champion, Mesabi Range, didn't get invited to a bowl game....

The last bowl to glance over is the Mississippi Bowl, also a first-year event. No. 7 Mississippi Gulf Coast qualified automatically as the Mississippi champion. Independent Georgia Military, ranked No. 3, got the other bid, which most observers thought would happen all along....

Information for this summary was provided by Kathleen Hinrichs, Fort Scott Community College public relations director, and Sherry Hoffpauir, media director for the Heart of Texas Bowl.