In celebration of Arizona's centennial, the Star will feature our picks for the 100 best athletes, moments and teams.
Throughout the summer, we will showcase our list - with the first 90 in no particular order. In August, Greg Hansen will choose his top 10, with a column on each.
Lakeside Blue Ridge football team
Achievement
It started the first game of the 1994 season.
After losing to Show Low in the 1993 state semifinals, Lakeside Blue Ridge played Sunnyside in the '94 season opener and beat the Blue Devils 61-0.
Blue Ridge didn't lose again until the 1998 state championship game to Payson. In between, the Yellow Jackets won 63 straight games and four straight Class 3A state championships.
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"It's quite intense," Blue Ridge coach Paul Moro told the USA Today before the 1997 season. "People want to talk about it. There's a lot of pressure, really. High school sports aren't supposed to get this serious about winning games."
Blue Ridge actually won 64 straight games, but the Arizona Interscholastic Association ruled a canceled game during the streak didn't count and adjusted the streak to 63.
The Yellow Jackets won the 1994 state championship, their first during the streak, with a 28-6 win over Winslow. It was Moro's fourth state championship as Blue Ridge's coach. He led the team titles in 1987, 1989 and 1990.
In '95, '96 and '97, Blue Ridge beat Queen Creek Arizona Boys Ranch in three straight state title games.
"The streak was there, and there was lots of pressure," Moro told The Associated Press after the title game loss in 1998. "But if I had my way we'd have the streak at 100, and we'd just keep fighting with the pressure."
Moro is still the coach of the Yellow Jackets, and Blue Ridge has won four more state titles under the veteran coach since the streak ended, giving him 11 total since he took over in 1984. The Yellow Jackets have also been the runners-up four times in Moro's career.
The school's enrollment is just 900, and Moro has said he's had only a few players go on to play Division I football.
"It's a special program," Moro said to MaxPreps. "We've always focused more on the team than the individual."
He said it
"We try to build a successful attitude. We try to create that feeling every year by telling kids, 'You're not the most important thing out there - that they need to put the team ahead of their own interests." - Moro to MaxPreps in 2010.
Daniel Berk
