A Game To Remember

    When I think of the many football movies I’ve enjoyed over the years…Rudy…The Blindside…Knute Rockne: All American…Vince Lombardi: Legend in Granite…The Longest Yard…The Water Boy…All The Right Moves…Everybody’s All-American…Brian’s Song…We Are Marshall (which I watched on my honeymoon)… my favorite is one where a group of teenage boys and their coaches overcome their differences, prejudices, and fears to join together to reach not only greatness on the gridiron, but an understanding of some of life's most powerful truths.

    
     With a catchy soundtrack and Denzel Washington as the head coach guiding his team in a racially-charged climate, Remember The Titans is a movie worth watching and re-watching. Without a doubt, this film is my favorite football flick because it embodies what is best about high school football. 

     And since I already admitted my addiction to workout DVDs a few days ago, I might as well come clean again. I have just a little obsession with high school football.

    
      Of course, I am sure my father being a high school football coach for over fifty years has something to do with it. The game has been part of my life every weekend since before I was in kindergarten. (About that...if I ever talked to his coaching staff the way little Hayden Panettiere's character did in the film...well, let's just say I knew not to even think about it.)

     

     Yes, I root for my teams during Saturday’s college games and Sunday’s NFL contests, but there’s something about what happens under the Friday night lights that can’t be captured anywhere other than within a high school football stadium.

   

      In the past few weeks, when I have watched my son’s and then my godson’s seasons come to an end, I have to admit I got a little melancholy.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were waking these boys up for the humid summer camp sessions of August?  Even The Big Ticket, the area’s local weekly high school football show, has closed down until next September.  When I checked in at its regular time slot last Friday night, I was a little sad to find in its place the Channel 69 Noticias Edicion En Espagnol.

   
     It doesn’t seem all that long ago when it was the beginning of the season, and well over five hundred teams in four different classes across Pennsylvania started their mission to achieve some common goal.  Maybe it was a league championship. Maybe it was to reach play-offs. Maybe it was to finish with a winning season. Maybe it was just playing for pride.

     For the past few weeks, some of these teams’ dreams have been kept alive.  From east to west, they have clashed with their opponents ~sometimes from places unknown ~ in hopes of surviving another round and continuing their march to the center of the state, Hershey, PA.  It is here where the final showdowns take place ~ and only eight teams make it.

    In the next 24 hours, hundreds of boys will be having Hershey kisses tossed at them ~ the informal annual ritual performed by families and fans for the victors who have prevailed in earning the honor of representing their side of the state.  On the other hand, a few hundred others will fail in their attempts to get a chance to win a state title. 

     For many young and dedicated teenage boys who have clanged weights in the off-season and devoted extra hours to build their skills, strength, speed, and stamina..dreams will be dashed, tears will be shed, and the seasons that honestly started way back last December will all come to a heart-breaking end. 

     In the defining moment of my favorite football film, when it looks like the 1971 Titans' season may be coming to an end, the assistant coach confronts an unfair racist referee, knowingly sacrificing his Hall of Fame nomination as a result.  Fired up from the exchange, he returns to the sidelines to rally the defense, casting aside his usual laidback Southern demeanor and bringing his heart into the huddle: 

     “All right, now I don’t want them to gain another yard!  You blitz all night!  If they cross the line, I’m gonna take every last one of you out!  You make sure they remember... forever... the night they played the Titans!”

     All that I would hope for any of these boys is just what Coach Yoast barked at his players.  Someone is going to win and someone is going to lose, but ~ whichever you are ~ play today in such a way that it will be remembered forever.

    Have a wonderful Saturday…and best of luck to the teams whose hopes are still alive.