Minn Starks 17U National won its final two games Sunday to finish 2-2 in The Players’ Platform last weekend at Hyvee Arena in Kansas City, MO.
Starks was led by 6-foot-5 Duluth Marshall sophomore-to-be Brooks Johnson, a rising Division I prospect. Denfeld standouts Aidan Altona and Finnley Powell, both 6-foot-2 seniors-to-be, are also on the team.
How do you replace lost industrial base? How do you stabilize tax revenue? How do you bring consistent, year-round activity back into a hollowing downtown? Rochester, Cleveland and Pittsburgh leaned into medicine and were successful.
The lesson is not that every project will succeed. It is that progress requires participation — from developers, from institutions and from city leadership willing to remove obstacles rather than manage decline.
Howie is editor & publisher of 50-Yard Football The Indoor Football League, founded in 2009, enters its 18th consecutive season in 2026 as the longest continuously operating indoor football league in the United States and the sport’s de facto major league. With 14 teams across eight top-50 media markets,