While much of the focus is on the fact that high school football is around the corner, Kosmo knows that boys soccer is around the corner also. Given that, Kosmo hopes at some point this season he sees Paul Bartoshuk is seen on the sidelines at Country Day. As many know, Bartoshuk, who has won 13 state titles as head coach, missed last season with an illness. Country Day won't say what it the illness is publicly, which is fine and understandable. The Yellowjackets dedicated last season's state title to him, but hopefully he'll be a part of this year's team in some way. Kosmo is always a fan of coaching legends within the county and Bartoshuk definitely is one of them

It's nearly Monday according to the calander in Kosmo's cave, and upon closer glance, there are two weeks going left until the official start of high school football practice. Wow. Time sure flies. Anyway, since the time is finally here to look ahead to football, Kosmo has one key question. Who is going to be the sleeper team this year? The one thing your seer doesn't like about high school football is that it seems to be the same teams that are good at the start of year. Brother Rice. Catholic Central, St. Mary's. Lake Orion. Clarkston. Rochester Adams. Nothing against those storied programs, but it can get a little boring at times. Can anybody new step to the forefront this year? Can Holly be a candidate? The Bronchos have made the playoffs the past two years, the first time in school history they did it two years in a row. Maybe Holly can prove it can play with the big boys this year. Another candidate could be Farmington, a solid program which has a couple Division I players that could take the next step if all goes well. Those are just two that come to mind for Kosmo, but I'm sure there are others. Hopefully there will be because it will be nice to see some new blood among the county's elite this fall.

Kosmo was reading through the all-county baseball team this past week in his cave and noticed that there was another accolade for Walled Lake Central senior Zac Leimbach. As if being the all-county football team's top quarterback and a standout basketball player was enough, Leimbach goes ahead and has as fine of a season on the diamond as there could've been in the state. A batting average of .680? Are you kidding me? No wonder he made the all-state Dream Team. Man, Kosmo is sure going to miss Mr. Leimbach. Not only was he one of the best three-sport athletes to not only come through Walled Lake Central, but Oakland County in general, in recent memory, but you won't find a more quality young man. The way he handled his father's unfortunate and awful passing due to cancer should be a guide for everyone on how to handle adversity. He was a true leader in everything he did with his work, character and integrity and Kosmo is so thankful that people like Leimbach are going to be the future leaders of this country. Rumor has it Leimbach will try and walk on to play football at Michigan State. Coach Dantonio and his staff are definitely lucky ones to be sure. Hopefully there will be many more Zac Leimbach's who play high school sports in Oakland County in the near future, but Kosmo knows it won't be easy because many like him don't come around often.

It's a Friday in July and before Kosmo starts turning his attention to football season, he does want to bring up a high school baseball topic that could be interesting. Mind you, Kosmo is no business telling people what to do, especially what are some of the best coaches in the state. But here's just a suggestion or a bug to put in someone's ear at two local powerhouse programs for 2013. As many know, after decades of playing at St. James Field in Birmingham, the Brother Rice baseball program will be getting its own field in Troy. It's supposed to be an immaculate facility with turf field and grandstands, a championship stadium for a championship program. Of course, Brother Rice will now get to play many more home games in the non-league season and are probably about to line up the teams it'll play in the non-league portion of its schedule at Warrior Field. Well, Kosmo knows the perfect opponent for the first ever game at Warrior Field, whenever it is. It's going to be a special and historic occasion, so why not make it even more so by scheduling an opponent that's within Oakland County, and like Brother Rice, has won a state championship within the last five years and is a power just about every year. Yes, Kosmo feels the first game at Warrior Field should be between Brother Rice and Lake Orion. Of course, Kosmo is aware that these teams haven't faced each other in the regular season in a long, long time. Both have lots of programs around the state that want to play them, and there are only so many non-league games in a season to schedule. Still, for some reason these teams haven't scheduled to play each other, but what better time to end years of not playing each other than next season. Both are usually good each year, but next year both the Dragons and Warriors are going to be GREAT. Each team returns most of its roster and has multiple players that'll be playing Division I college baseball. They'll be two bona fide top-5 teams in the state. How does a starting pitching matchup of Nick Deeg vs. Matt Ruppenthal sound to break in a first-class facility? And in addition, what better way to break in such a great complex at Warrior Field than to have a matchup that could easily also take place in Battle Creek a couple months later? Again, coaches and administrators at both schools are among the best in the state and Kosmo has no business telling them what to do. This is just a mere suggestion of something that not only he would like to see happen, but so would those who follow high school baseball around the county and the state. There can't be a better way to open Warrior Field.

Reading up on the high school all-star baseball game at Comerica Park last week, Kosmo was happy to see that Auburn Hills Avondale senior A.J. Susick was a part of the game. The K-Man wouldn't have been surprised two years ago when he was on varsity as a sophomore, but he would've have been last year given Susick didn't have the best of junior seasons. But give Susick major props for bouncing back and having an outstanding senior season, one that saw him make the all-state Dream Team. He dominated on the mound this year with an ERA under 1 and hit nearly .500 at the plate, so hopefully he lands a nice opportunity for a college program given those numbers and given he's a tall, hard-throwing righty on the mound. - Another player Kosmo was happy to see in the game was Birmingham Groves senior Jake Balicki, who was the MVP of the East team. Balicki missed half of the season with a calf injury but still showed in his limited time that he was one of the top players in the county. He was a definite all-star and he'll have a great career in college at Michigan

Kosmo wants to extend apologies for last week's lack of posts, but summer down time is summer down time in the cave if you know what your seer means. Anyway, Kosmo is back and did pay attention to things that went on last week, particularly the all-star football game on Saturday (by the way, yet another player from the East side dropped out this morning. Just kidding, but why all the players dropping out of the game?) and where it was played. This is not a post bashing the host site, Alma College. It is a post to bash the NCAA. Evidently, there's a rule in place that prevents Division I universities from hosting high school sporting events on their campus. Kosmo doesn't know the technicality of the rule or the exact verbage of it, but he can pretty easily give some verbage about what the rule is: Stupid. Kosmo finds it strange that the NCAA feels that the universities could be gaining an "unfair" recruiting advantage by hosting high school events. The all-star game was originally scheduled for Central Michigan but had to be moved because of the rule. This rule might mean the end of high school basketball games between Rochester Adams and Rochester at Oakland University in the winter as well. That's too bad, given administrators and students at both schools packed OU's gym and made it a neat event. So if that philosophy is true, why let general students visit colleges on campus tours throughout the year? Isn't that an "unfair" advantage? Also, what about the extra "booster" benefits that recruits receive when they commit to a college program? The NCAA will for the most part turn a blind eye to that, but ruin a chance for high school students to get the experience of playing in a college stadium. By the way, the NCAA through this rule is promoting that just about every kid is going to get a college scholarship and we need to regulate. Hmm, that's strange since, what, 5 percent of high school athletes earn scholarships? Now, thanks to this rule, the other 95 percent of high school athletes are denied the chance to have the experience of playing a sporting event on a college campus, something they'd take with them the rest of their life. Again, here's the best way to describe the rule: Stupid.