Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / Brandon Wilson with Vincent Printing helps put up a banner at Finley Stadium on Tuesday. The TSSAA’s nine BlueCross Bowl football state championship games will be held at the stadium this week, with three each on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.For more BlueCross Bowl coverage from the Times Free Press, read more here.
Welcome back to the Scenic City, high school sports fans.
From just before lunchtime Thursday through Saturday night, Chattanooga will be the official epicenter of the prep football world for the state of Tennessee.
The BlueCross Bowl – with three title games played each of the next three days at Finley Stadium – will bring tens of thousands of fans as well as millions of dollars into the city. It’s also a chance to reintroduce much of the state to what makes Chattanooga so uniquely charming.
It was that charm and the local support for high school sports that served as the springboard for the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association to create the Spring Fling, which was held in Chattanooga from its beginning in 1993 until it moved to Memphis in 2003. Chattanooga has hosted other state championship tournaments – ranging from girls’ soccer to wrestling – through the years, but after nurturing those into success, each eventually was moved to larger cities.