October 2, 2010--Friday Night Lights

There is nothing like high school football. Certainly, there is better football to be watched on college campuses and in NFL stadiums, but there is nothing like the feeling of excitement that can come from representing your school or in some cases, your entire community.

In small towns all over America, they gear their entire week around the high school football game. It is an opportunity for one small town to battle another, an opportunity for their small town to feel pride in what and who they are. It is the small towns that don’t need the large eye of a television camera to make things exciting. Football in the small town hasn’t changed in decades.

But high school football has come a long way since I graduated in 1971. I would not miss a game while I was in school. Before I could drive, my dad would pile 3 or 4 of my friends into the car and take us to wherever the game was. Unlike today when half of the students attending are just there to hang out with friends, we were there to be part of it. We were there to be heard and when we lost we felt almost as bad as those on the field.

Now, there are national polls and national champions. When we drove the 45 miles to play a team in Indiana, it was big time, now teams fly all over the country to play the best. ESPN has become a huge supporter of high school football as they look to fill up their various channels with live sports. There are games on national networks every week now and they have helped create even more interest in a game that participants relive over and over when they get together decades later.

When ESPN comes to town, the spotlight becomes even greater. Earlier this year, a number of teams from Central Ohio were featured on ESPNU which included one of the young men that I coached in baseball when he was eight years old. If someone would have told me that two of the players from that team would be playing football on national television just nine years later, I would have laughed. But both Marcus Davis who has turned into a promising receiver much like his Uncle Chris Carter of Ohio State and Vikings fame and my own, Jason, who has no such, lineage have made it to ESPN.

Friday night I got to experience the excitement that ESPN can bring to a sporting event. Local TV started coverage of the game at seven in the morning by covering the pep rally at Hamilton and talking to one of the top players in the country at Chandler. Julia and I thought it would be wise to get there early as all Hamilton tickets were sold out before noon. When we got there 90 minutes before the game, we found that the entire stands on the Chandler side were completely full with cheers rolling from one end to the other.

It was to be a black out for Hamilton and we did not disappoint. Students were painted from head to toe in black body paint. Girls were in short shorts and black sports bras with designs and messages painted everywhere that there was exposed skin. Guys didn’t even bother to wear shirts as the 100+ degree temperature just invited body paint instead of shirts. It was indeed black.

There was electricity in the air as the ESPN provided extra lights made the field look more like it was high noon than the dark of night. Extra stands were brought in and firefighters were sitting on top of their fire truck just outside the field. Students and adults were four deep ringing the field as there were no seats to be found. The steps to the top of the stands became jammed with others seeking a place to sit. A 10,000 seat stadium had found a way to host 13,000.

The game started out as two heavy weights throwing punch after counter punch. Chandler lead by scores of 7-0 and 14-7. The home stands were erupting as they felt that this would be the year to beat Hamilton after 13 consecutive losses. The stands would erupt at any sign of positive play. Yet, despite that, you just knew that Steve Belles, the Hamilton coach with at 59-3 record would find something to change the course of the evening. Then it happened, Hamilton would score the next 31 points and the Chandler stands began to empty with the same sickening feeling that have had 13 other times. Despite the hard work and the ESPN buildup, it was just another loss to their cross town rival, other “wait until next time.”

On the home front, it was a great night for a game after a great day to go to the doctor. The blood tests continue to look good and my doctor could not be happier. The cancer continues to decline. It is not gone, but it seems to be losing the battle and I didn’t even need a black out or ESPN to show up.