The downside of Cowboys’ Romo moving to the broadcast booth

pick as any as America’s favorite analyst of all time. Of course, what Meredith did on Monday Night Football with Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford was not really analysis. It was conversation, Cosell’s New York societal commentary with Meredith’s folksy wit. It made for must-see TV, the likes of which we no longer have in sports analysis, unless you count the TNT studio panel of Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson.

No NFL franchise has put three quarterbacks into such vaunted broadcasting roles.

Romo’s decision to retire means the Broncos and the Texans are back in the shopping business for a quarterback to go with vaunted defenses. Romo would have been a big upgrade for those teams. He could have attempted the Peyton Manning route to a Super Bowl.

Instead, it appears Romo will be at Super Bowl 53, since CBS has the Super Bowl after the 2018 season. My best guess is that he’ll call a good game.

Hope you can hear him.

The hiring season for high school football has been beyond fascinating.

Not in a dramatic sort of way. More in a bizzaro-world sort of way.

It’s hard to remember a year when so many top-level jobs have come open.

Perennial powers with deep tradition. Big schools with top-notch facilities and budding potential. And just generally solid jobs at school districts that are good to work in.

Places like Carl Albert, Ada, Weatherford, Deer Creek, Edmond North, Owasso, Bethany, Norman, Yukon. Programs like Putnam City West and Choctaw, which have been given new life since the split of Class 6A.

The hiring season started with a big splash, when Owasso named

as its head coach.

We were enticed by what might follow when retired at Carl Albert, when Deer Creek drew away from Ada, or when Weatherford pulled

out of Bethany. We seemed set up for an enthralling offseason of big moves. But the payoff never came.

Let’s be clear. A lack of drama isn’t a bad thing. Unless you’re, say, trying to sell newspapers.

Also, the absence of drama hasn’t been because of poor hiring choices. It’s just that several schools have found good coaches without plucking them from head coaching positions at other Oklahoma high schools.

Every time the coaching carousel started to spin, it stopped to let on a new rider.

Some schools stayed in-house, like Carl Albert, which handed the program to its defensive coordinator of the last nine seasons, or Bethany, which promoted longtime assistant

on Monday. Others found quality assistants at other programs, like Edmond North, which gave a well-deserved head coaching opportunity to Memorial assistant

Several teams have gone out of state to find coaches, which — compared to the last couple years, and the still-uncertain condition of education funding around here — is actually a good sign.

We went cherrypicking in Arkansas. After Owasso grabbed Blankenship, Yukon pulled in from Lake Hamilton High in Pearcy. who had been on Reed’s staff, landed at Piedmont. Ada snagged away from Shiloh Christian in Springdale.

The hiring season isn’t yet over. Douglass recently came open, and a few others are still winding down their searches with spring practice about a month away.

Lexington, a smallschool program that has been on the rise the last couple of years, is now in the market for a new coach after was hired as Yukon’s offensive coordinator.

He joins the flexbonefriendly staff of Reed, who used the run-based offense to win the Class 5A state championship with Altus in 2015, and it’ll be intriguing to see that offensive approach at the top level of Class 6A.

Here’s the good news about these coaching changes. Quality programs hired quality coaches. And when football season gets here, we’ll forget all about how little drama we had in the the hiring season.

Purcell hires Raper as basketball coach

The wheels are in motion with basketball coaching changes, and Purcell is among the first to land its next coach. The Dragons hired

away from McLoud. Raper is the brother of Yukon coach

and the son of Hall of Fame coach

Bethany seeking two basketball coaches

While Bethany athletic director got his football coaching vacancy filled on Monday with the promotion of assistant he still has a pair of basketball coaching searches on his hands.

The girls job has been open for almost a month, and the boys job came open a little less than two weeks ago, when

stepped down, citing his desire to spend more time with his young family.

Edmond North wins again

The Edmond North boys golf team won for the fifth time in as many tournaments, posting a pair of under-par rounds as a team to win Edmond Memorial’s Bulldog Invitational on Tuesday at Kickingbird Golf Club.

The Huskies shot a two-round total of 7-under-par 553 as a team to win by 12 shots over Owasso.

To top it off, the Huskies swept the top three spots in the individual race as well. won with a 3-under 137, while and

each shot 138 to tie for second.