So North Carolina beat South Carolina in the Shrine Bowl last week. I think the score was 26-19. Problem is, for folks in this state, the Shrine Bowl just doesn't mean what it used to, and that's a shame considering high school football in this state has taken off the way it has, and interest in high school football in this state has taken off the way it has.

The Shrine Bowl started in 1937 and was based on the East-West College Shrine game in California. Charlotte fire chief Hendrix Palmer helped put on the first game in December 1937. That game attracted 5,500. Admission was $1. It was the nation's first high school all-star football game.

And it was played here until 2000, when organizers moved it, basically because it just wasn't attracting the crowds it once had. I remember when the game would draw 20,000 and was shown on live TV that you didn't need cable or an Internet connection to see. But by 2000, moving was the right thing to do. Crowds were way down. TV ratings were way down.

At the time, high school football in Charlotte had been going down, too.

The game moved around for a few years before landing in Spartanburg, about a 90 minute drive south of Charlotte and too deep into South Carolina for the game to matter for most N.C. fans.

Check the N.C. papers. Shrine Bowl coverage was sparse during the week, and live game coverage wasn't strong either. Shame. The game matches the best players from North and South Carolina. It's a wonderful event, and over the years the Shriners have raised more than $70 million for children with disabilities in the Shriners Hospitals.

It's funny, but in 2000, when the game left town, high school football really began to take off in North Carolina and especially in Charlotte. Independence won seven straight state championships. Skip one year and Butler won two more. Charlotte Catholic won a couple. Mecklenburg County, and North Carolina, began to produce All-Americans with great regularity.

High school football began to matter like it never had before. But the season, in this state at least, ended when the state championships did. For the kids who made the Shrine Bowl team, it was probably a great week, full of memories. But I can't tell you how many emails I got (and get) from people wondering what the Shrine Bowl is, or wondering why they stopped playing it.

If you're going to have a game with the best players from both states, you play it in a border town. Charlotte sits on the state line for both states. This is where the game started.

Memorial Stadium is old and in need of repair. So you can't hold it there. Bank of America Stadium, where Cam Newton's Panthers play, is too big, and probably too expensive.

The perfect solution, friends, is Charlotte, UNC Charlotte. The 49ers are about to launch a football team in August 2013. UNC Charlotte's 15,000-seat stadium will open in August 2012.

Besides a really big high school football game to kick off the place - can you hear me Butler and Mallard Creek - wouldn't it be cool to have the Shrine Bowl come back to town and help open up the 49ers' new digs?

I think it would help the Shrine Bowl, too. Imagine living in, say, Durham, and thinking of going to watch. Don't think I want to drive from Durham to Spartanburg unless my kin is playing. But I can see going from Durham to Charlotte.

And Charlotte's a media hub. The Shrine Bowl's Q rating instantly goes up by coming back. And the interest in high school ball here, particularly about high school stars who are going to college, has never been greater.

Listen, end of the day, the Shrine Bowl is about some of the two states' top recruits.

It's time to bring them - and the game itself - back home. Back to where it all started.