High School Football & Tearing-Up

Why did I tear-up last night at Amador’s football game? Jen noticed, “What’s wrong dad?” I blurted out something about how these strange emotions sneak up on me. It’s hard to explain. Maybe it was cumulative. The week before we were at Foothill’s Senior Night with parents and grandparents. Now again, Senior Night, this time with Alex’s parents and grandparent. We haven’t been to an Amador High School Football game in years and years—since 1994 when Jeremiah crowned his successor Home Coming King. Or, maybe we attend a few games sprinkled in there between now and then. I don’t recall any tears.

It is hard to explain, but I would like to take a shot at it. It happened, that tearing up thing, before kick-off when the band was playing and the students cheering, and the players jumping up a down eager to begin the big game. It was a perfect Friday night under-the-lights football spectacle. The stadium more than packed for this cross-town rivalry. It’s the same spectacle my father enjoyed in the early nineteenth century when Stockton High played Lodi High School. The same when Gary and I played (Gary played, I suited up) for the big game between Santa Rosa High School and Montgomery High. The same as when we attended Friday night games with our High School age children during the late 80s and early 90s. And, there I was, 25 years later, on Senior Night watching Ron with his daughter and son-in-law walk the field before the game to honor their senior son/grandson.

How many traditions remain intact for over a hundred years? And football… you would think The Enlightened would put a stop to it. There must be something wrong with such civic fun. Isn’t there something sexist about those cheerleaders? And, certainly football is a violent game—too dangerous. Kids get hurt. How do they let us get away with it? Maybe that’s why I teared-up. We got away with it. And it was so much fun.

I suppose there’s more to it. There’s always more—like age perhaps. We get nostalgic. When we were young parents, watching our children play, we didn’t realize how beautiful a Friday night football game could be. Now, we take it in with wonder and gratitude. In spite of our troubled and conflicted world, there remains something precious about God’s beautiful green earth. Maybe, if the Lord allows us to stick around, we will walk that beautiful green field one Senior Night with one of our grandchildren. Wouldn’t that be something?