I Was Thinking... Friday Night Lights

One of my favorite places to be on a Friday night during the fall is at a high school football field. In small towns throughout much of the country, this is the local gathering place for people of all ages.
I’m not talking about large cities; I’m referring to the small towns, where everybody’s kids go to the same school. In most small towns, the school is the cultural center of the community. This is where people go to see plays, attend concerts, and cheer for their athletic teams. Well after their own children may have graduated, many people continue to be loyal fans of all the school activities.
You just need to look for the brightest lights in town on a fall Friday night, and you can probably find the community gathering point. Recently, my wife and I had to be out of town to help with a family matter. Since I couldn’t attend my hometown football game, I attended one where I didn’t know any of the players or the fan base. Yet, the scenario was almost the same.
Before I even reached the ticket booth, I could hear the pep band doing their pre-game set of songs. On this particular night, the band was very noticeable since they were all dressed in pink because it was “fighting cancer” night. Although this was a foreign setting for me, the pep band played the same type of songs all the pep bands play at games. I heard “Hey Baby”, “Sweet Caroline”, “Tequila”, and “Crazy Train”.
Rather than seeing everyone coming in black and gold, blue and white, or maroon and black like our local teams, tonight everyone was in green and black. I felt out of place without the accepted color combination for the evening. But the colors aren’t limited to the clothes people wear to the game. You can see the colors flow over to local stores, electronic signs around town and could even show up on a water tower.
While the main attraction for the evening is the football game, not everyone is too concerned about the action on the field. If you are an avid football fan like me, you focus on the game. This is probably also true if one of your kids is actually playing. But for others, it is more of a social event.
Many attending are groups of multiple generations.The couple next to me had their grandson in tow. The couple on the other side were parents, grandparents, and a couple grandchildren. Some seemed to have selected the same part of the bleachers for each game. But the social element extended to younger people, too.
Pre-teens apparently came to the game to compete in their own contests. Footballs were flying on the field, but numerous other ones were being thrown behind the grandstand, in the grassy area just outside the regular field and even in the parking lot. Some of it resembled a pick-up football game but other parts looked like a cross between keep away and dodge ball. This also tells you a lot about the general atmosphere surrounding the football game.
Once families paid their admission and entered the gate, kids often were off on their own. There seemed to be a feeling of safety that extended to the whole area. Parents may not see their kids for quite a while unless they show up to ask for money to buy something at the concession stand.
While teenagers may come to the game with their parents, they did their best to avoid contact with them for the rest of the night. Being at the game was an important element of their social network. While some might be concerned with who won and who lost, others were more concerned with who they could hang out with for the evening.
On an unusually warm fall evening, I still enjoyed the fall drama played out all over the country even if I didn’t have the same emotional involvement with this game.
 
Did You Ever Wonder? — If you are in competition with yourself, do you come in first or last?