There’s hope for any struggling high school football program within the field for this weekend’s regional championship games.

A third of the combatants weren’t even around 10 or 15 years ago.

Take Saturday’s Western Maine Class C final between Yarmouth and Dirigo of Dixfield. Dirigo does have football in its past, but dropped the program in 1990 amid dwindling population and a lack of success before being resurrecting it a decade later, initially as a cooperative team with Buckfield.

Today the Cougars are undefeated and ranked No. 1 in Western C.

And their opponent this weekend, Yarmouth, is in just its third year as a varsity program.

Other relative newcomers still alive include Western A finalist Windham, which played developmental football in Western Maine Class B and then debuted in the Pine Tree Conference Class A ranks before settling in its current spot.

There’s also Cape Elizabeth, whose Western B battles with Mountain Valley of Rumford have been made into a movie but in reality hasn’t been around long enough to have a rivalry on the level of Biddeford-Thornton Academy, Cony-Gardiner, Portland-Deering, Waterville-Winslow or Bangor-Brewer.

Eastern Maine is not without its successful upstarts. Most recently, Calais-Woodland has qualified for the playoffs in each of its two seasons in the LTC Class C ranks.

Emerging from the growing pains of program infancy is not a feat easily accomplished, because to do that is to overcome not only the internal challenges of building a product from scratch but doing so in a way that equals or surpasses other teams with a head start often measured in generations.

Among the ingredients needed to develop that winning formula is a strong coaching presence, not only at the varsity level but throughout the subvarsity, middle school and youth levels that are critical to maintaining program stability.

Also required is the community-wide patience to withstand the lack of instant success, yet the understanding that the need for patience should not stifle the pursuit of steady improvement.

Then, of course, there’s the needed talent pool along with the financial support and infrastructure that make the sport appealing to sports-minded youngsters within the community.

All easier said than done, to be sure, but the recent steady increase in high school football programs statewide suggests the sport is a valued commodity to which parents and others are willing to contribute in economic times both good and bad — particularly as former football players move their young families to outlying communities that lack the sport in their schools.

High school football has revealed itself as a unique community-building tool in what serves as suburbia in Maine, particularly in the southern part of the state.

But that trend is spreading north, too, in such communities as Hermon, which is off to a strong, structured start en route to developing its own varsity program.

As for the early stages of the varsity experience that follow for any fledgling program, those inevitable 64-6 or 55-0 losses can seem overwhelming. But they also can be just mere temporary setbacks on the road to respectability.

For the playoffs truly are open to new and old. Just look at this year’s field.

eclark@bangordailynews.net

990-8045