The Haka be praised! Trinity will play on Labor Day!

Rest easy, Houston high school football fans...North Texas pretentious melodrama is alive and well in the football ranks up in the Metroplex. And, to me, it is no surprise that it wears the black and red of Trinity High School in Euless.

Defending 5A-D1 state champ Euless Trinity will still participate in the 2010 Kirk Herbstreit Varsity Football Series at Cowboys Stadium on Labor Day, even though they will have a short five-day turnaround for a Saturday district game that same week (the horror!). The Trojans had agreed to play in the early-season showcase against Shiloh Christian from Springdale, AR, before the UIL's realignment placed them in the nine-team District 6-5A.

Eight district games meant only two non-district matchups. An odd number of teams in the district meant that there would be one inactive team each week during district play, effectively eating up a bye week, so Trinity had to schedule a Zero Week game.

Head Coach Steve Lineweaver immediately commenced the agonizing and hand-wringing process of considering backing out the commitment to play on Labor Day (Week 1, second and final non-district game) in favor of a Friday or Saturday game the weekend before, but the team wanted to play. So they will. WHEW!

Before you shed tears for their misfortune, know this: David Smith's Klein Oak team did the same thing last season, without any of the fanfare or any of the media coverage. And facing Sherman Oaks Notre Dame and Cypress Woods, they arguably had a much tougher two-game stretch than Trinity will.

As a coach -- or as Mike Gundy would say, a "man" -- there are some things you just do and accept the consequences, good or bad.

Trinity's Saturday game that week is against Richland, who aren't a walkover by any stretch of the imagination, but also aren't Southlake Carroll. The Trojans should manage enough strength to muster up two faux Haka dances in one week.

For my money, I will never see anything funnier than a red-headed freckle-faced 16-year-old kid from the mid-cities doing a tribal warrior's dance.  And doing it wrong. Unless it's Mike Gundy going off on a reporter.