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On the road again, Tucson football survivalists Canyon del Oro, Santa Rita and Ironwood Ridge will scatter throughout the greater Phoenix area in the state semifinals.

These are what the Arizona Interscholastic Association terms to be neutral sites.

Pat Nugent takes the Dorados to a high school field in Glendale on Friday. The same day, Jeff Scurran's Eagles will travel about 140 miles from their East Side campus to Paradise Valley. Their Scottsdale opponent will travel about 12 miles. Gary Minor and the Nighthawks will ride a bus to faraway Phoenix North Canyon High School next week, when the 5A-II playoffs resume after a weeklong break.

The Dorados, Eagles and Nighthawks will be accompanied by a handful of students and parents, who this week give thanks that the price of gasoline has veered under $2 a gallon. Once on site, the fans of Tucson's playoff football teams will be outnumbered 4 to 1 or worse.

The CDO and Santa Rita games will be played the day after Thanksgiving, the No. 1 shopping day of the year. They will play in the middle of the afternoon, further prohibiting fan support.

Is this in the best interests of our football teams?

A week ago, Amphitheater's girls volleyball team was forced to play (it lost) for the 4A-II state championship on a Monday night, squeezed into a week of school, in Phoenix, against a Chandler team. The Panthers, 39-3, had qualified for that game via a 10 a.m., Saturday morning semifinal in Phoenix.

There's gotta be a better way.

"The playoff formats in all sports have been skewed for 30 years, all of it favoring Maricopa County schools,'' Amphi Hall of Fame football coach Vern Friedli says. "It is not a level playing field. It's absolutely unfair.''

Here's a better idea: The 26 Southern Arizona big schools (4A and 5A) should secede from the AIA and launch their own athletic union.

One large Tucson class. One provocative Tucson championship in every sport.

That would fly, wouldn't it?

Imagine CDO playing Santa Rita for the Tucson City football championship on Saturday at Arizona Stadium or even the fan-friendly Tucson High School stadium. Picture the Amphi volleyball team playing Sabino for the Tucson City volleyball championship at McKale Center.

Big time.

The Tucson champion would then broker a state championship game every year against the AIA-produced Phoenix champ. Every sport. One year in Tucson. One year in Phoenix.

The AIA has gotten too big, too unwieldy, to serve Tucson's best interests.

"I've been to many meetings at the AIA, and the fact is, the Tucson schools are overpowered by sheer numbers,'' says Bob Vielledent, longtime athletic director, football and basketball coach at Sahuaro, Santa Rita and St. Augustine high schools. "A Tucson school is never going to win any arguments."

At the very least, Tucson would be better served by a Southern Arizona commission of high school sports, whether it affiliates with the AIA or not. It would be wise to study the California model for high school sports.

California is separated into 10 districts, producing 10 sectional champs in every conceivable sport, every year. Usually, the sectional (CIF) champs then meet for state or regional titles.

"The AIA would do well to put somebody in a position of power in Tucson,'' says Vielledent.

Friedli says: "Playing a Tucson city championship game is natural. It's necessary. Unfortunately, it all starts at the top, and no one has been willing to buck the AIA.''

There are 127 big schools (4A and 5A) in Arizona; 85 are from the Phoenix area. Most Tucson schools paid about $10,000 to the AIA this year; the money is used primarily for insurance, referees and fuel.

Football playoff games and seedings are determined by a points system created in Mesa. Championship games are played almost exclusively in Phoenix; the AIA has long-term contracts with title-game venues in Maricopa County.

Cienega High School football coach Nemer Hassey last month told the Star "a lot of stuff is more of a Tucson issue, and Phoenix is kinda taking control.''

This is control: A week ago, the AIA ruled that Salpointe Catholic's football program illegally recruited an eighth-grade lineman and thus made the Lancers ineligible for 2009 post-season games.

Salpointe coach Dennis Bene wasn't informed of the punishment by the AIA, but rather by a Phoenix newspaper reporter.

If it had not hit the Lancers so hard, it would be comical. High-powered football and basketball teams in Phoenix (and Tucson), especially Catholic-sponsored schools, have been accused of recruiting for decades.

Salpointe, an easy, out-of-town target, was the guinea pig for punishment.

It was a marginal infraction involving a freshman coach and an academically ineligible transfer who never played a snap for Bene.

The punishment didn't fit the crime, but because the AIA has unchallenged power, because it lacked so much in timing and sensitivity, it was able to announce its sanctions a few days before the Lancers played in (and lost) the state football quarterfinals.

In a high school football sense, it was taxation without representation.

It's time Tucson represented itself.