Robert Not Bob

Well it’s turn to face the stars and stripes
It’s fighting back them butterflies
It’s call it in the air, alright
Yes sir, we want the ball
And it’s knocking heads and talking trash
It’s slinging mud and dirt and grass
It’s I got your number, I got your back
When your back’s against the wall
You mess with one man, you got us all
The boys of fall

The Boys of Fall by Kenny Chesney is practically a gospel hymn in the football (American football for my international readers) crazed state of Texas.  It’s not often that the Hollywood version of something is a tamed down portrayal, but when it comes to high school football in Texas, the Friday Night Lights movie and television show might not fully capture the insanity that ensues each August in Texas.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Texas high school football.  I grew up an steady diet of high school football games in East Texas.  I have fond memories as a young kid riding on the cheerleader bus by dad often drove and standing on top of press boxes helping him film games (with a camera with actual film reals) for the dear old Whitehouse Wildcats.  One of the benefits of now having daughters that are cheerleaders, is that I have a perfect excuse for still watching games every Friday night.  However, unlike many in Texas, I am not watching the mega-schools of the state playing.  Instead I am usually watching schools with enrollments of less the 400 students across all  four grades of high school.

As you may recall, my daughters are Catholic school kids.  One recently graduated from St Dominic Savio Catholic High School and the other is a freshman at the same school. Football at private schools is not exactly the same as  at their public school counterparts.  The number of kids playing is much smaller, so small that on many teams there are numerous players that are two-way starters.  It is iron man football.  The coaching arrangements are also very different, with many coaches having other day jobs outside the school. The crowd sizes are also much smaller, usually numbering in the 100s, not the 1000s.  And of course that usually means playing in stadiums that are a far cry from the palaces that seem to constantly  pop-up across the state.

And it is that difference in stadiums that really sticks in my mind as I visit different places on Friday nights.  St Dominic Savio doesn’t even have a home field.  Home games are played on the campus of a nearby public high school, using that school’s practice field that has never been used for an actual varsity football game for that school.  And most of the teams St Dominic Savio plays have “stadiums” that can usually be described as grass fields with a few aluminum bleachers.  There are no video boards, no permanent concession stands (think pop-up tents with folding tables), no hospitality areas (unless you count the lawn chairs in the gravel parking lots) and in most cases no rest rooms that aren’t a good 1/4 mile hike to the nearest building.

These places are a far cry from the $60-70 million high school stadiums that have recently been built in the Dallas and Houston areas of the state.  I think if you added up the cost of all the private school stadiums I have visited over the past 5 years, they would not even come close to the costs of even one of these taxpayer funded monuments to the Texas Football gods.

Fortunately the lack of posh surroundings does not seem to dampen the spirit and determination of these Friday night warriors.  Nor does it seem to hinder the excitement and passion of the fans of those teams.  In fact I think the back-to basics environment enhances the entire Friday Night Lights experience.  I wouldn’t trade all those nights in the cramped, dusty, muddy, buggy football fields for even one night in one of  those gleaming high school football palaces.

Here’s to the Texas private school boys of fall, and their fans – you are the heartbeat of the real Texas Friday Night Lights.