It’s Friday and we’re getting the first signs of winter here, nighttime temperatures into the 30s and the wind crisp and cold out of the north. It actually snowed a little yesterday. So what does this cold snap bring to mind? Football!
A typical Friday in high school shared at least one thing in common with a typical Friday now – I can’t wait to get the day over with and get on with my weekend – but after school I would hurry home and eat and hurry back to the football field to see who I could hook up with.
I can remember games when it was so cold everybody was bundled up, including the cheerleaders, and the two most popular spots were the concession stand getting coffee or the restroom to get in out of the cold. Of course that cold was relative. It was cold to us but someone from North Dakota or Alaska would probably laugh at us.
But it was cold, and it was fun. Sometimes, it almost seemed like the colder, the better. The crowd always seemed to get into it more when it was cold. Maybe it was a way to stay warm. Who wanted to sit down on cold bleachers?
I can remember one game when this leather-lunged, half-drunk guy sitting behind me yelled some of the most obscene cheers I’ve ever heard. I still remember one of them word for word.
I also remember a fight or two, but the then new high school didn’t seem to have as many of those as the old field up on the hill. I remember one game with Lenoir City at the old high school when there had to have been eight or ten guys going at it behind the bleachers.
The games were also “rumor central” where you would run into people you sometimes didn’t see during the week and caught up on who was doing what, or sometimes even who was doing who.
I still see the kids running around like we did back then, so it must be just as much fun to them as it was to us. Why didn’t we ever think to take off our shirts when it was 35 degrees and paint ourselves red and white?? :)
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