PFN RESOURCE GUIDE
A Tribute to Dr. Roger B. Saylor
Dr. Roger B. Saylor was one the pioneers in Pennsylvania Football History.
In the following section, The PFN Resource Guide has listed the all state teamsdating back to the inception of each of the four organizations that named such teams.
According to our research, the Associated Press first selected their first All-State Team in 1939. In 1969 the AP started naming both offense and defensive All State teams.
Due to the fact that the Associated Press decided not to sponsor all-state teams following the 2009 football season, the Sport Writers of Pennsylvania took the ball into their hands and, under the leadership or former Harrisburg Patriot News sports writer, Rod Frisco and now retired high school sports editor from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mike White, initiated the first annual Sportswriters All-State Teams. In 2013 Eric Epler from Pennlive took over organizing the All-State teams and the name changed to the Pennsylvania Football Writers All-State team with a different format which you will see.
As you peruse the list of Pennsylvania All-State Teams, you will notice that the format changed in 1988 from an overall selection to a Big School/Small School format. In 2003, Associated Press decided to select teams according to each of the four classifications. Although this was a new approach for the AP, it was not unique, since the Pennsylvania Football News started their All-State teams using this system of selecting teams from all four classifications in 1998.
United Press International also named Pennsylvania All-State Teams, and surprisingly, there were few duplicate names on both the AP and UPI over the years. The UPI named their first teams in 1952 and decided to discontinue naming all-state teams in 1984.
Pennsylvania Football News began naming their all-state teams in 1998, the initial year of their newspaper, that no longer exists. PFN was the first to name all-state teams in all four classifications.. PFN now names them for all six classifications.
This may be the most entertaining section of the PFN Resource Guide, as it is absolutely satisfying to go back and look at the names of some of the greatest players that ever played high school football in Pennsylvania.
–THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ALL-STATE TEAMS FROM 1939-1979
—THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ALL-STATE TEAMS FROM 1980-1999
4–THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ALL-STATE TEAMS FROM 2000-2008
5–The UPI ALL-STATE TEAMS FROM 1952-1984
5. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PLAYERS AND COACHES OF THE YEAR 1988-2008
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