Are You Ready for Some Football??!!

Sorry to borrow from Hank, Jr, but fall in central Texas is exciting! Sure, it can't possibly really be fall yet since the thermometer still tops 95 degrees daily, but school is in, and high school football starts tomorrow night!

I'm hard pressed to explain why I love football so much, but I'll try. As a child, I would go over to my friends' houses on Sunday afternoons to find their dads glued to the tv, rooting for their favorite teams. Since my dad was in the Army, we had geographically diverse neighbors and most of the teams in the NFL were represented in our 'hood. The only house without football on was ours and I wondered why we didn't partake of this obviously fun and family building experience. My dad hates televised team sports in general and football in particular. I think this stems from when he was permanently benched as a senior in high school for repeated clotheslining offenses. At any rate, Tubby hates football. He begrudgingly attended two football games while I was in high school to see me perform with the band and left right after half time. His comment about it all was, "Why does a high school have more coaches than Notre goddamn Dame?" (btw, note the juxtaposition of the profane into the Latin phrase for "our mother"-pure Tubby!)

My early guidance on the subject came from my male cousins who explained the game to me, and one fateful day in 1976, they drove me past the site most holy to some of us: Texas Stadium. From that moment on, and to this day, although we have had some tough times of late, I was a Cowboy fan. Not to get mushy, but Interstate 30 between Dallas and Fort Worth has been dubbed Tom Landry Highway, and the signs even have little fedoras on them. My eyes get misty every time we pass.

The love of the game grew during my high school years when I was in band. While to some of my female friends this was just an excuse to ogle cute guys in tight pants (admittedly a perk), I was paying attention and wondering when the hell the refs were going to start calling some pass interference. To this day, I love being friends with a girl who knows what intentional grounding is.

I continued attending games throughout college and into my teaching career. Seventeen years into teaching, I'm still a season ticket holder and in attendance at all home games. I have the Dawgs on Fridays, the Aggies on Saturdays, and the Cowboys on Sundays. Granted, those last two teams have let me down a lot during the last couple of seasons, but I love them all. When all three teams win, I call it a trifecta weekend.

Once, our high school football team was selected to be part of some exhibition games being played all over the state on Labor Day weekend. The venue was (genuflect) Texas Stadium and our opponent was a little team from west Texas: The Odessa Permian Panthers. These are the folks that were the basis for the book and movie Friday Night Lights. As we pulled up, my then seven year old stepson wanted to know why there was a big hole in the roof. I explained to him that the hole was there for God to watch his favorite team. His response was, "God's favorite team is the Bulldawgs?" My response was (and I apolgize if I blaspheme a little here), "No, Sweeite, God's favorite team is the Cowboys; the Bulldawgs are his second favorite." By the way, the Panther mojo was no mo' that day, as the Dawgs were victorious.

College and pro games are great, but there is something so pure about high school sports. Most of the people involved are in it for the love of the game, and as a teacher, I love the personal feeling of pride in the kids I've taught doing great things on the gridiron. And I love to see all the kids perform, not just the athletes. Band, cheerleaders, drill team, and ROTC all play their parts as well and contribute to the sense of community pride I feel at every game.

So tomorrow night, I'll don my blue and gold and sit among 10,000 or so of my friends, colleagues, and neighbors to cheer on our Dawgs in their season opener. The Frito pie will be hot, the drinks will be cool, the air will be full of energy, and I'll be in section B, row 8, seat 29, happy to participate in the tradition of Friday Night Lights.