High School Coach of the Year

ON A WARM SUMMER DAY LAST JULY, CATHEDRAL Prep coach Mike Mischler and 13 of his senior football players loaded into his Jeep Cherokee and a rented passenger van to begin a journey through the nation\'s heartland. The two-vehicle caravan\'s four-day swing through the college towns of South Bend, Ind., Iowa City, Iowa, East Lansing, Mich., and Ann Arbor, Mich., was an informal meet-and-greet trip for Mischler and his players - a way for them to see some campuses, meet some coaches, and get one step closer to making their dreams of playing college football reality. It was also the first step the players would take together toward becoming the first football team in school history to win a state championship, something that had barely eluded the Ramblers the year before. Flashback to 1999: Pinned deep in their own territory with three minutes left to play, Mischler elects to preserve his