Why I post here even though I'm in college

[WesVLT]

Why I love high school football...

 

The reason I have maintained my proud affiliation with Brentwood Academy, CoachT.com, and many random small-town gridirons is that I love sports, especially at their purest level. The players are paid only in pride, and athletic directors are more concerned with scheduling the school rival at an advantageous time than they are about selling t-shirts or building lavish new stadiums.

 

I own my fair share of UT t-shirts, and every time I walk into Neyland Stadium tears of awe-saturated pride overflow their banks. There is nothing like Tennessee Volunteers football.

 

The NFL grasps more fury within its clutches than any earthquake in this hemisphere. The quarterbacks' finesse, receivers' speed, and linebackers' tenacity make tackling look like savegery and touchdowns look like Olympian feats.

 

But there's still nothing like watching a scrawny, pad-burdened letter-jacket wearer push aside a stubby, stocky linebacker whose dad and grandpa played on the same Cornfield High field, still as spotty as ever because the timeless janitor is too old to remember where he put the keys to his tractor -- but you can bet your mouthpiece he remembers the score from every battle against crosstown foe Pineridge.

 

The lights are never fully functional. The scoreboard is missing a bulb or two. The cheerleaders haven't quite perfected their basket tosses, but the hormonious boys in the front row don't seem to mind. The PA announcer's mic is a little too juiced, his accent a smidge too caustic.

 

But this is football. It is torn jerseys with oversized sweatholes. It is sweat saturated with the salts of sacrifice and sentiment. It is an undersized offensive line compensating for its dwarfishness with adrenaline-inspired hatred for the boys wearing the other color. It is brushing hands with those very foes after the game, nobly kneeling alongside them for a postgame prayer regardless of the drubbing they gave you five minutes ago.

 

It is anything but a business.

 

And yet there is no more reliable economy than the treasure of untainted enjoyment filling the hearts of young men as they lay substandard blocks and drop wobbly spirals. Such passion is enough to put the local ministers in serious jeopardy. It is enough to resurrect the sleepiest towns. It is enough to last a lifetime if accompanied by innocence.

 

Unfortunately, naivete spins away like a botched extra point, and life soon pursues these boys -- now men -- and drags their purity to a premature halt.

 

But on a practice field not far away labor thirty more boys. New boys on a new road to manhood.

 

Nay.

 

It is the same road.

[AintSkeerd59]

Beautiful.

[redbaron515]

I am speechless.....That was an amazing post Wes. Amazing use of words. Well written.

[wavemachine]

WesVols,

I loved the post. My hope is that your college major is English because, I am anxiously awaiting to read your first novel!

[GBT57]

Bravo

[fromthetop2]

Being a graduate of the UT College of Communications, I am glad to see they (as well as the English Dept.) are honing your writing skills.

Always have enjoyed your work and perspectives.

Keep up the good work. The more you write, the more you read,the better you become.

Well written pieces will always have an audience.

[tonymontana]

MUY BIEN AMIGO. MUY BIEN.

[02Wildcat]

Great just a well written piece of work. Loved the word play, it related to those Friday ngiht butterflies everyone gets before the crosstown rivalrey games....Just awesome

[FalconLuv04]

wow........

[Rebelsman]

That was really good Wes. I enjoyed reading your piece.

[cav-o]

very nice!

[TnVols23]

That was awesome... Probably the best, most intelligent thing I've read on Coacht. I like the part about the old janitor thumb