BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LOUISVILLE
-- Highlands quarterback Jared Lorenzen raised his index finger above his head Saturday as he skipped off the field, succinctly summing up a day when the Fort Thomas school rewrote the Kentucky high school record book.
"We didn't expect anything like this," the senior said. "This is just unbelievable."
At a school where state titles are considered almost a birthright, this championship even exceeded expectations. The 56-7 rout of Louisville Waggener gives Highlands the records for most points and largest margin in a Kentucky championship game.
The Class AAA title is the school's 13th, also a state record. Highlands also set records for the most points scored in a season. Kicker Brennan Jones set a national record for the most points-after-touchdown kicked in a year, 90.
"We got our Christmas present early," said Clem Fennell III of Fort Thomas, who played on Highlands' 1968 title team.
His son, sophomore Clem Fennell IV, became the third generation of the family to win a title. Clem Fennell Jr. played on the school's mythical state champion in 1943. (Kentucky's sanctioned playoffs started in 1959.)
"If you live in my family, you have to play football," said Clem IV.
Exhibit A in the family's love of football was the Highlands helmet atop their mini-van on the way to the game. It's actually the top of a grill they won at a team boosters' auction.
About twice as many Highlands fans made the 90-minute trip to Louisville as did Waggener fans, who had a 15-minute trip from a Louisville suburb to reach the stadium. Football is serious business in Fort Thomas.
A 1969 Highlands graduate, who wouldn't give his name because he called in sick at work to see the game, celebrated with an air-raid siren. He fired it up in the first quarter when Highlands intercepted a pass. But the play was nullified because of a penalty.
"Boy, that's enough to drive you nuts," he said of the penalty, not the siren.
Denise Trauth and Cory Bichlmeir challenged security guards to show their support for the Bluebirds. The seniors -- wearing team jerseys, Army fatigue pants, Highlands bandannas and blue lipstick and eye shadow -- waved oversized "H" flags when the team scored. But they didn't have the right pass, so a security guard tried to run them off the field. A Highlands coach took up for them.
"They pretty much consider us a part of the team," Denise said.
The flag girls concede they're not the No. 1 Highlands fans. That honor goes to Vi Gerding, the 80-year-old Southgate resident who retired this year after working 42 years in the school cafeteria. She still attends all the games, and even has a street near school named after her.
"We lived in Fort Thomas the 10 best years of our lives, when the children went to Highlands," Mrs. Gerding said. But she considers all the other Highlands students to be her children.
After watching three generations of Highlands teams, she tries not to judge which was the best, even though that's one
of Fort Thomas' other pastimes. Then she admits this year's squad "probably is the best."
Mr. Fennell won't go that far.
"You're never ready to concede," Clem III said. ". . . The old-timers have got some claims too, but (this year's team has) got a pretty good argument."
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