Alright so last week my nephew asks me outta nowhere where to find Iowa’s 2024 high school football all state teams. Figured it’d be simple but boy was I wrong. Started googling like crazy – big mistake.
The Wild Goose Chase
First I typed “Iowa all state football 2024” straight into Google. Got buried under:
- Old 2023 lists everywhere
- News articles with no actual rosters
- Random school district sites that required logins
Clicked through like ten pages feeling dumber by the minute. Kept finding these “official” athletic association sites that looked straight outta 1998. None listed teams properly – just schedules and ticket info.
Reddit Rabbit Hole
Got desperate and searched Reddit next. Scrolled through r/iowasports and r/hsfootball forever. Found one guy asking the same question – zero replies. Another thread talked about 2023 teams with broken links. Wasted a whole coffee break digging through dead ends.
The Lightbulb Moment
Finally remembered local papers used to publish this stuff. Googled “Des Moines Register all state football” – bam! Their site popped up but couldn’t find the dang list anywhere. Paid articles blocked me until…
Changed tactics completely. Searched “Iowa Newspaper Association all state teams”. Dug through their dusty digital archives section until I saw “2024 Winter Sports Awards”. Nearly threw my laptop when it opened PDF scans of actual newsprint pages!
The Workaround
Here’s what actually worked:
- Grabbed my phone and went straight to newspaper sites
- Searched each paper individually: Des Moines Register, Sioux City Journal, Waterloo Courier
- Found the Waterloo Courier had freemium access – saw three names before paywall hit
- Ended up paying $1.99 for digital copy of the Register’s Sunday Dec 15th edition
Took screenshots of the full lists finally. Whole process chewed up two evenings and three cups of terrible gas station coffee.
What I’d Do Different
Skip all aggregator sites. Go direct to these sources starting late December:
- Major city newspapers (especially Sunday sports sections)
- Coaches association newsletters (they email ballots)
- Local TV station sports blogs
And pro tip? When you find a paywalled list, search that exact article title in Twitter/X. Sometimes reporters drop free links there.
Anyways that’s how this simple question turned into a three-day detective mess. Still finding PDFs in my downloads folder.