An Ode to High School Football

[dazed&confused]

It is called high school football and it’s a special season around here. It’s in the air. It’s the chill of evening, the smell of hot dogs, the glare of lights, the sounds of cheering. It is old timers who can remember when and youngsters who dream of their day coming soon. It’s a time to mix and mingle with friends not seen for awhile. It’s parents who sacrificed time and their own pleasure for their kids. It’s coaches who have spent their summer days and fall Saturdays pouring over plays and films. It’s boosters who have organized countless funding drives just so the team has the best equipment possible. It’s the rides to alien fields in other counties. It’s the band playing that fight song and alma mater that still raises the hair on your neck. It is rising for the National Anthem; where people of all political and religious persuasions join in a solemn salute to the Nation and all those who have sacrificed that they might gather here. It is stadiums ancient and new where rivalries renew year after year. It is history for the communities involved. It is bragging rights for one side and ‘wait til next year’ for the other. It is listening to the radio on the way home. It is ten special Friday nights like no other throughout the year. But mostly, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for young men just coming of age with their whole lives ahead. They toil through long hot summer days, sweating onto the dry dust of fields far removed from the glamour of the game to get ready for that special thing we call high school football. They miss out on some of the joys of summer that others experience. And they do this not for money or personal gain. They do it for the love of the game, a pure love that most can never understand. They do it for themselves and those who share the lockers, the benches and the sidelines with them. They are partaking in something that even they will not fully appreciate until many years later when they gather and reminisce. Let us all salute them and thank them for this measure of pride and enjoyment they give us. And let us all remember that the best play of any game on any field, no matter what the score, is when these fine young men line up and shake hands at the end of the game. This is high school football.

[moonshine]

WOW!

[JohnKnight]

Very nice.

You left out one very important group of people and i kills me to have to give them their props but, the officials are a very important part of that Friday night Experience. Although they get paid a small stipend, MOST of them have put a lot of time and effort preparing to do the best job they can for the boys. So I will add the Zebras to the list of folks that make Football a great way to spend 10 or more Friday nights a year!

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

THAT'LL LEAVE SOME GOOSEBUMPS FER A WHILE. GOOD READ. I LIKE IT ALOT.

[boilermaker]

Great post

[Portsmouth98]

Bump

[gogrove9]

That was GREAT!!! That needs to be in the football programs somewhere.

[fuzzhead]

I absolutely loved it. You hit the nail on the head, D&C!
I also have one I'd like to share. I wrote this my junior year of high school and I dug it up. . .

"A Particular Evening in Autumn"

The evening was filled with a breeze which I took to be a sign of newly-come autumn. The sky was of the mixed twilight color of a cloudless dusk when the black-blue of coming nightfall clashes against the receding pink rays of the sun. The temperature felt like that of perfectly moderate autumn - the temperature in which one could wear either shorts and a t-shirt or a light jacket with blue jeans and be just as comfortable in one outfit or the other.
That was above the ground. On the ground below was a sprawling mass of eager fans hustling and jostling about each other trying to get to where they wanted to go. Some bustled in long lines, waiting to be served at the concession stand. Some stood along the track, talking to friends, old and new. Most of the fans had situated themselves in the bleachers and were watching the football players warm up on the field. The cheerleaders on the track walked about with a sort of lethargy, which I thought might be some sort of pre-game meditiation before they began to burst into loud, hopeful cheers and a wide variety of energetic carwheels, handsprings, and several other flips and flops.
The marching band was situated on the sets of bleachers purposely set aside for them. They were a motley bunch, but they could play a great tune. The band director stood upon a high, wooden platform and lectured them. He was a very fat man whose cheeks were always blood-red; his face incessantly dripped with sweat. I concede the fact that he didn't look like any sort of maestro, but he demanded a lot from his band and they always seemed to deliver. They were a highly successful band with many awards to their name for their "outstanding" or "excellent" performances across the state.
The football teams practiced on opposite sides of the field. They were still just boys, but massive sizes and deep voices implied the presence of grown men. The football field seemed to transform the boys from their normal, social selves into titans about to clash with evenly matched enemies. The coaches oversaw the transformation; they were the ones who had transformed the boys into titans. With hard practice, inspiring speeches, and persistent disipline they had molded two groups of individuals into two football teams. It was a glorious transformation!
The teams stretched their muscles and practices plays and with every second, the intensity of their attitudes turned from that of calm and collected scholars to that of some wild tribe of barbarians. They began to come alive as they warmed up. Screams of excitement and yells of energy rang from the field. They filled the crowd with their contents - excitement and energy.
This game would be the climax of a week's worth of hard work in practice. This practice session before the game was simply to whip the players into the furry of the battle that would ensue - to stretch the muscles - to make sure everything that had been learned earlier that week was still fresh in the minds of the players. The game would end with one team winning, and thus putting a punctuation mark on their week, and one team losing, and thus failing to execute their purpose which was soley to be victorious.

This was the scene below the clashing colors of the fading evening and amongst the gentle winds of the newly come autumn. . .