Alright let’s talk about digging up that Lakewood High football schedule. Figured other folks might struggle like I did, so here’s exactly how it went down.
The Initial Frustration
Woke up Saturday morning thinking, “Real simple, just need the Lakewood Titans schedule.” My nephew plays linebacker, ya know? Wanted to plan my weekends around home games. Figured two minutes on the phone. Boy, was I wrong.
First, fired up my browser. Typed in “Lakewood High football schedule” like anybody would. Got swamped. News articles about last season’s championship (cool, but not what I needed). School district announcements about safety meetings. Nothing actually showing game dates and times.
Getting Down to Business
Time for the direct approach. Pulled up the actual Lakewood City Schools website. Nice and shiny. Found the Athletics section easily enough. Scrolled… and scrolled. Full of policy stuff, registration forms, booster club info. Where the heck was the football schedule?
Finally spotted “Sport Schedules” tucked in a corner. Clicked, heart lifted. Oh. A list of allll sports. Found “Football (Boys V)”. Clicked it.
Boom. A whole season laid out. At least… kinda.
- First problem: It defaulted to showing only HOME games. Seriously? Makes zero sense. What about the away ones?
- Second problem: Dates were there, kickoff times kinda floated between “TBD” and “7:00 PM”. Mixed bag.
- Third problem: Opponent names? Mostly abbreviations. “vs. WHS.” Okay, is that Westlake? Wickliffe? Willowick?
The Deep Dive
This is where persistence kicked in. Scrolled to the top, saw tiny little filters I almost missed. Clicked the dropdown that said something like “All Events.” Changed it. Bam. Finally saw both HOME and AWAY matchups listed together.
Still had the opponent mystery. Had to get creative.
- Started clicking on individual games listed as AWAY.
- Some linked directly to the opponent school’s athletics page. That helped crack the code: “WHS”? Oh, it’s Whitmer High from Toledo, shows their logo and everything.
- Others were useless links. For those, I just searched “High school football abbreviation OHS” locally. Usually popped up quick.
- Noticed the schedule page also had links to things like “Directions.” Clicked one randomly. It opened a map! Confirmed where an away game was.
Sticking the Landing
Took screenshots of the full HOME & AWAY list on their site. Panned to grab everything. Couldn’t trust it to stay put! Also jotted down the key away games with deciphered opponents and locations in my notes app. Highlighted the big rivalry dates.
The final kicker? Saw a tiny icon for an athletics calendar subscription. Clicked that. Boom! Got a prompt to add their entire athletics calendar to my phone’s calendar. Thought “Why wasn’t THIS the first thing they showed me?” Added the whole thing in seconds. Now every game, home or away, pops up automatically. So much easier.
Whole thing took maybe 25 minutes when it shoulda taken two. Public school websites, man. Got the job done though. Now I know exactly when to bake those away-game cookies. Worth the hassle in the end.