Editor’s note: This story also appears on the Bellevue sports blog with more photos

Chad Coleman and I just returned from a full day spent in Katy and here’s a full look at what we did today.

Chad and I rolled into Katy this morning – our initial impressions on the town was that, obviously, it cares about its football a lot. A LOT. I swear, the “STATE CHAMPIONS” signs, listing the years the Tigers have won, were everywhere. EVERYWHERE. The high school (which boasts to be the “School of Champions”) had the state champion signs everywhere.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first thing we did was head to meet up with Katy Times sports editor Nick Georgandis, a great guy who volunteered to be our official tour guide/Katy history buff.

Nick took us first out to Rhodes Stadium, where we spent a few minutes getting acquainted with the site of tomorrow’s game. Let me tell you, half of what makes this game a great matchup is this stadium – it screams Texas football. It’s big enough for Katy to pack in 10,000 fans, but not big enough to make you feel like you’re at a college game. When its packed with screaming fans, it should be a great site.

Here’s a funny note – last week’s Katy game was played without a scoreboard in the second half – a lightning strike knocked the board out of commission.

After checking out Rhodes, Nick took us by the school, and all I can say is ‘wow’. This school’s facilities were better than some colleges, and I’m not just talking about the athletic facilities. A massive performing arts center right behind Katy High School is the jewel of the new additions.

We went into the school and checked out the athletic department, and boy, do they give their athletics staff a great work environment. We were welcomed in by Katy head coach Gary Joseph, and talked shop for a few minutes before being given Joseph’s blessing for free reign of the facilities. We checked out the Tiger’s training room – again, wow – before taking inventory of the trophy case, filled with Katy’s state championships.

One thing that struck both Chad and I was the amount of Katy Tigers stuff everywhere. Everywhere you looked, a Katy logo was there. This was most evident in the Katy ‘team room’, where the squad watches film and game plans for opponents. The walls are adorned with photos (many taken by Nick), including a great photo of the Tigers defense swallowing up Southlake Carroll’s quarterback Chase Daniel, who would later become a prolific college qb at Missouri. Katy handed Daniel his only HS loss.

One thing I thought was quite funny – Katy has a football wall, part of which is dedicated to that weeks opponent. There was press clippings on Bellevue, pictures of players, and then there was this story written by a certain Bellevue Reporter staff reporter, blown up and tacked in the middle of the opponent wall.

After we exited the school, Nick took us to Los Cucos for a fantastic lunch, as you can see in the post below.

After that, we went back to Nick’s office to work on a little project you can find tonight on our site. After bidding Nick goodbye, Chad and I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Katy and gathering photos for our little project, including stopping by the MKT Line depot, the train line that gave the town its name. MKT stood for Missouri-Kansas-Texas, was shortened to KT, which shortly became “Katy”.

Katy is one of those places you have to experience yourself to see how this town feels about its football. The pride is evident and its everywhere – people were wearing Katy shirts all over the streets.

Tomorrow we’re headed in early to experience gameday – we’ll have full dispatches from the road as we take in the football experience.