You can keep your pumpkin spice, your fantasy football drafts and your "official" end of summer. Around here, you know the seasons are changing when somebody says, "Two-a-days start Monday."
That's when you know it's almost football time.
After all these years covering high school football, I've learned one thing: every season begins exactly the same way. Every coach says he's "taking it one game at a time." Every player reports to camp in the "best shape of his life." Every parent insists this could be "our year." And every sportswriter starts hunting for enough synonyms for "hard-nosed defense" to last until November.
Some traditions are simply too good to change.
There's just something special about Friday nights. You can smell the hamburgers on the concession stand grill before you ever hear the band warming up. The parking lot fills up two hours before kickoff because folks don't want to miss a thing. Grandparents claim their favorite seats. Little kids toss footballs behind the bleachers, pretending they're scoring the winning touchdown in the state championship game. Teenagers gather more for the social scene than the scoreboard, although they'll never admit it.
Then the lights come on.
To this day, it's one of the best sights in sports.
I've covered games where the home team won by 40 and games that came down to a last-second Hail Mary. I've watched future college stars and young men who would never play another organized game after graduation. You know what? They all mattered.
That's because high school football has never really been just about football.
It's about community.
It's about the band that has practiced in the August heat just as long as the players have. It's about the cheerleaders who somehow still have enough energy to smile in the fourth quarter. It's about the chain crew that hasn't missed a home game since disco was popular. It's about volunteers in the concession stand who somehow believe every hot dog should come with a side of conversation.
And let's not forget the officials. They may be the only people in town who can make both fan bases equally unhappy before halftime.
Every season writes its own story. There will be unbeaten teams and rebuilding teams. There will be goal-line stands, trick plays, overtime thrillers and at least one coach who says, "We just have to execute better," after every loss. You can read those quotes each week right here in this column.
As for us old-timers, we'll settle into our familiar seats with a roster in one hand and a notebook in the other, hoping we can still read both under the stadium lights.
The scoreboard will eventually go dark each Friday night, but the memories won't. They'll stick around long after the pads are put away and the jerseys are folded for the final time.
So here's to another season of moving the chains, protecting the house, giving 110 percent -- -yes, I know that's mathematically impossible --- and reminding ourselves why Friday nights still matter.
Because around here, when the lights come on and the band strikes up the fight song, there's no place we'd rather be than right there on the 50-yard line, watching another chapter of hometown football unfold.
