Football Games

I remember the football games of my youth. The football games that I played in and the football games that I attended. As a young man growing up in a less complicated time, football games were meaningful events. When you played football games, whether they were just neighborhood pick up football games or whether they were football games you played for your high school team, these football games were a test. A test of your character. A test of your will. And a test of your strength. These football games revealed something about you and the other guys playing them. These football games were not just idle pastimes. These football games were a proving ground. These football games were a classroom and these football games were a rite of passage.

In the football games, you could come to know yourself and to expand yourself. These football games gave you a fairly safe place to test your nerve. These football games gave you, if you were lucky, a chance to see if you could live up to the ideal of yourself you churned around in your head. These football games gave you the opportunity to act out the hollywood movie fantasies of heroism that you had been weaned on. In these football games, you were pitted against a known enemy within a defined space. You loved these football games because you knew what was expected and you felt sure you could live up to it.

I also loved to go to football games. Usually a high school game. maybe rarely, a professional football game. But mostly, high school football games. Even though they were just small time amateur football games, these football games were thrilling to attend. These football games had their pageantry and their excitement. These football games fulfilled a physical, as well as an emotional need.

It was great to be out in the autumn air on a sunny Saturday attending one of these football games. The sky was that autumn shade of blue and the flags at the north end of the field snapped in the breeze. You could feel the coming winter chill in the air, but there was also an electric excitement in the air at these football games. And even thought they were just high school football games, there was a sense of importance, a sense of the pride of who you and where you came from. These football games pitted town against town. We were grappling for something important, home town pride when we played these football games.

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