It’s probably a vast understatement to say that Lynn Burke’s history of high school football in Southeastern Virginia, titled “Hampton Roads Football Encyclopedia,” is the most informative book ever written on the subject.
That is clear from the introduction, where Burke, a sports reporter for the Daily Press for 45 years before his retirement in 2015, writes that his 385-page treatment on area high school football covers 37,160 games which produced 1,253,067 points dating back 145 years and continuing through the 2024 season.
The book is as complete a listing of the high school football results, records and standings as imaginable, beginning with Norfolk Academy’s win in 1878 over a club from Portsmouth. It includes not only the records and results of every school ever to play high school football in the area, but the names and records of their coaches.
Burke’s geographical area for his tome stretches beyond South Hampton Roads and the Peninsula, south to Courtland, north to the Eastern Shore, up to the Middle Peninsula, Northern Neck and New Kent. No school that has ever played a high school football game within those boundaries is excluded, public or private.
That includes the Black schools prior to desegregation. His thousands of hours of research included treks to the Virginia State University library in Petersburg. There he scoured microfilm of long-ago-closed newspapers and VSU’s archives of the Virginia Interscholastic Association whose members were absorbed by the Virginia High School League in the late-1960s.
“If I was going to do it, I wanted this book to be all inclusive,” says Burke, whose research spans four decades and took him to 19 libraries where he viewed the hard copies and microfilm of 38 newspapers, scores of high school yearbooks and myriad websites. “I didn’t want people to say I ignored the private schools and Black schools.
“The (Norfolk) Journal and Guide (known now as the New Journal and Guide) was a great resource for the Black schools.”
Finds in “The Hampton Roads Football Encyclopedia: The History of High School Football in Southeastern Virginia 1878-2024,” available for $25 on Amazon, include:
A list of every area state champion.
An entertaining and comprehensive narrative on every high school season since 1891.
Year-by-year scores of almost 180 high schools, 80 of which still play football in the area. This section, 205 pages, includes the names and records of coaches when available. Among area teams, Maury has played the most seasons (129) and games (1,243) through 2024, while Hampton had the most wins (874) and Phoebus the highest winning percentage (.747).
Region and state playoff records for every area school dating back to 1920.
District standings for every season of high school football season.
Individual honors including every all-district, all-region, all-conference and all-newspaper team ever named (except the All-Eastern Region team of 2006, Burke laments), dating back to 1920. Every area player to make all-state or All-America is listed as well.
College honors for top area players.
A list of the 266 area players to play at least one regular game in what Burke labels top-level professional football leagues. That includes the 41 listed on Super Bowl squads, dating back to Warwick alum Henry Jordan, a lineman for the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I.
Records of 86 on-going series of 50 games or more. Norcom holds a 53-46-3 lead over Booker T. Washington when the area’s most-played rivalry hits 103 on November 7.
“I was impressed by the number of players who went on to the pros and by the richness of the football history in our area,” Burke said.
