August is upon us, which means we are fast-approaching the best time of the year.

I’m just going to go ahead and say this now- football is the greatest sport to have ever been created. Other sports have their merits, sure, but in my opinion, nothing even comes close to touching football. Of course, I’m probably a little biased in my opinion. I have the special position of being a football sister, and until you’ve played the sport or been so close to someone who does, you can’t appreciate how truly special it is.

You can feel it in the air as football season is finally within reach. You count down the days until Friday nights under the lights, the best nights of the year. You watch your boys march down to the field, soldiers ready for battle, best friends there to have each other’s backs, brothers. You watch them on the sidelines, shaking out the nerves through the coin toss and the national anthem. They can keep it together as they step on to that field, but you know what’s going on inside their heads.

Months- literally, months- of work for this moment. They’ve lifted until they thought their arms would fall off. They’ve ran until they’ve puked, been blood, sweat, tears. This is the moment that decides if all of that work was worth it. There’s the kickoff, and all you can do is watch and believe that everything they’ve done up to this point has been enough.

That’s an experience not very many people get to have, but for the lucky few, it’s magical.

I’ve sat through freezing cold rain time after time to watch my brother play. I’ve recorded big games and celebrated wins and heard all of the locker room drama. Family dinner conversation will inevitably turn to talk of the season. I can still remember how proud I felt to watch my brother play in his very first high school rivalry game as a freshman, and this year I get to watch that same team in that same rivalry as varsity players.

But it isn’t just the sport itself that’s so special- it’s the boys who play it. A football team is a family, and that family becomes a part of your own. Their family drama becomes your family drama. Their wins are your wins and their losses are your losses. Football forms a bond unlike any other. It turns boys into men and harnesses potential into greatness. And it is an absolute privilege to get to watch that transformation take place.

Kenny Chesney's "The Boys of Fall" sums it up perfectly. Whether you're a football sister, like I am, or just a fan of the sport, if you have never heard the song you need to go listen to it. What Mr. Chesney describes is exactly why football is the greatest sport to have ever been created and why fall is, without a doubt, the best time of the year.

Happy football season!