As a high school football player, Nolan Tokuda said he and his Aiea High teammates "were shocked … and excited" to find out their game with Leilehua was to be one of the first shown on cable television.

"We asked our family and friends to tape it for us, on beta," Tokuda recalls.

In 1989, high school football wasn’t something you found on TV or DVDs.

But as Oceanic Time Warner Cable begins its 23rd year of football broadcasting next week, kicking off a schedule of 27 games, high school sports have long since found a home, and following, on the OC 16 channel.

Tokuda, now a championship coach at Leilehua, says, "there’s still excitement in having the games on TV for a whole new generation of players and their families."

The Aug. 11 match of Leilehua and Service High of Anchorage, Alaska, in Wahiawa, will be the opening act of three consecutive nights of prep football and another 100-event high-school year that includes girls and boys volleyball, basketball, softball and baseball.

"It doesn’t get old, it really doesn’t, especially when you see the players, the parents the schools and the emotional connection, each year" said Mitzi Lehano, Oceanic’s vice president for programming.

It was Lehano’s leap of faith that there was a niche for the telecasts in the late 1980s that brought the concept to the Oahu Interscholastic Association.

"Football (participation) was on a downward trend, so I thought the timing was great for us," said Hugh Yoshida, then the OIA executive director.

"At that time there were some concerns about over-emphasis of sports being on TV and thoughts it might cut into revenue. But it helped gain attention for our programs and the public schools and has become a big plus."

Officials declined to say how much Oceanic pays for the rights but people in the industry say the cash value is as much as $100,000 plus promotional assistance across the OIA, ILH and Hawaii High School Athletic Association.

Other cable entities have talked to OC 16 about its blueprint.

Oceanic president Bob Barlow, who came to Honolulu from San Diego, said, "I have never been anywhere that can come close to matching what is being done at OC 16 day after day, month after month."