If you were a high school athlete growing up around Pittsburgh in the 1990s, Saturday morning meant something different.

You woke up and turned on WPXI. Because it was time for High School Sportsweek.

Hosted by former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mark Malone, Sportsweek gave us something that younger generations probably can’t fully understand today.

It gave us a chance to actually see everybody.

Today, if somebody tells you there’s a 6-foot-5 sophomore at some school averaging 25 points a game, you can pull your phone out and find him in 30 seconds.

You can watch his highlights. Find his Instagram. Watch an entire game on YouTube. Look at his Hudl. See his mixtape. By the end of the night, you might know more about the kid than somebody who has actually watched him play in person.

We didn’t have any of that.

And that’s what made Sportsweek special.

 

It Was Our SportsCenter

That’s probably the best way I can describe it. WPXI High School Sportsweek was our SportsCenter.

Except these weren’t NBA or NFL players. These were us.

These were kids from Penn Hills, Aliquippa, New Castle, North Hills, Central Catholic, Woodland Hills, McKeesport and everywhere else around Western Pennsylvania.

Football. Basketball. Wrestling. Baseball. Girls sports. City League. WPIAL. If something big happened in local high school sports, you wanted to see if Sportsweek had it.

And there was something different about watching highlights back then because highlights weren’t everywhere. Today you can see a play five seconds after it happens.

Back then?

You might have to wait until Saturday morning. That anticipation made everything feel bigger.

 

Sometimes It Was The First Time You Saw The Guy

This is the part I remember the most.

We knew the names. We read the newspaper.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Press were huge for sports fans, and if you really followed high school sports, you knew who the top players were.

You’d read about somebody putting up huge numbers. You’d hear people talking about a great running back from another part of the WPIAL. You’d see a basketball player’s name constantly in the paper. But you might have never actually seen him play.

Think about how crazy that sounds today.

You could know somebody was one of the best athletes in Western Pennsylvania and have absolutely no idea what he looked like.

Then Saturday morning came. Sportsweek showed his highlights.

And finally: “Ohhhh…..THAT’S him.”

You finally put the face with the name. That was part of the experience.

 

Pittsburgh Felt Bigger Back Then

Social media has made the world smaller. But in a weird way, Western Pennsylvania felt bigger when we were growing up.

Penn Hills to Beaver County could feel like another world.

The Mon Valley had its guys. The City League had its guys. The South Hills had its guys. The Parkway Conference had its guys.

You heard the names, but unless your school played them or you went out of your way to see them, you might not get a chance to watch them.

Sportsweek connected all of it.

For that half-hour, whatever school you attended didn’t matter. You got to see what everybody else around Western Pennsylvania was doing.

That’s what made the show important.

 

And Everybody Wanted To Make Sportsweek

Let’s keep it real. If you played high school sports in Pittsburgh during that era, seeing yourself on Sportsweek was a big deal.

There weren’t 100 cameras at games. Nobody was clipping your highlights and tagging you on Instagram before you got home. You weren’t making your own mixtape on your phone.

So if that WPXI camera showed up?

You knew. You better do something.

And if you had a big game and made the show Saturday morning, people were going to see it.

Your teammates saw it. Kids from other schools saw it. Your family saw it. Coaches saw it. The whole area could see it.

There was something about local television back then that carried weight.

 

Mark Malone Became Part Of Our Saturday Mornings

Having Mark Malone host the show gave it another level of credibility. This was a former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback talking about our games.

Our schools. Our athletes. Our rivalries.

That’s what made local sports television so powerful. The show treated high school athletes like what they were doing mattered.

And around here, it did.

Western Pennsylvania has always taken high school sports seriously. Football is part of the culture. Basketball has produced generations of great players. The City League has its own incredible history. Small towns throughout the WPIAL live and breathe their teams.

Sportsweek understood that.

 

You Had To Earn Your Reputation Differently

That’s another thing I miss about that era.

There was mystery.

You couldn’t manufacture a reputation as easily. There wasn’t a perfectly edited highlight reel showing only your best plays. There weren’t followers determining who people thought was good. Your reputation traveled through performance.

You heard: “That boy from Aliquippa can go.” “New Castle got a guard that’s different.” “Penn Hills got somebody.” “Wait until you see this kid from the City.”

Then you’d check the newspaper. Then maybe you’d catch him on Sportsweek. And eventually, you might see him in person.

That’s how reputations were built. Word of mouth. Newspapers. Radio. Television.

And most importantly: What you actually did when the ball went up.

 

Kids Today Will Never Completely Understand It

That’s not me saying everything was better back then.

Technology has done some great things for young athletes. Kids can promote themselves. Families can watch games from anywhere. Players at smaller schools can get exposure that might have been impossible 30 years ago. Recruiting information is available instantly.

That’s progress.

But something was lost too. We lost the anticipation. We lost some of the mystery. We lost that feeling of hearing about somebody for weeks and finally getting to see what all the hype was about.

And we definitely lost the feeling of waking up Saturday morning, turning on Channel 11 and waiting to see which schools and athletes were going to make Sportsweek.

 

Before YouTube, Hudl and Instagram… We had Sportsweek.

Before everybody had a highlight tape… We had Sportsweek.

Before you could search a player’s name and watch 50 clips….. We had Sportsweek.

Before social media told us who was supposed to be good… We watched the games, read the paper and listened to people who had actually seen them play.

And on Saturday morning, Mark Malone and WPXI helped bring all of Western Pennsylvania high school sports into our living rooms.

For those of us who grew up playing sports around Pittsburgh in the 1990s, it wasn’t just another television show.

It was part of the culture. And if you know, you know.

Saturday morning. Channel 11. High School Sportsweek.

Man, I miss that era.