College students may feel ties to their high school alma maters stronger than almost any other graduate. While in college there is a certain sense to the atmosphere that, one way or another, can always draw one's thoughts back to the good ol' days spent walking the halls of high school with those closest friends and cracking up over a cheap meal in the cafeteria.
High school is incredible— it's a time when people are still able to be kids, but are burdened with some level of responsibility. Athletes strut the halls as royalty, bands play raucous soundtracks to stone-etched memories and students feel a buzz in the air from loyalty and excitement to the mascot.
My own senior year was incredible in ways that no member of my class could have expected. Practically all of our sports programs found success, our academic achievements were some of the most advanced in the state and our extracurriculars found unprecedented excellence. My senior football team won its first conference championship in 27 years, and missed the state championship by a one-point loss to the eventual state champion (who had beaten us out of the state tournament the year before, for the double whammy). In a small town with a football fandom, this was the year of a lifetime.
And then it ended.
The glory of a miraculous senior year came to a blinding halt for many of us there on that field when the final buzzer sounded, marking our only loss in more than a year. Any shred of pride we could take in our victories died when we threw our caps in the air the following May.
Now that more than a year has passed, my teammates and I still like to reminisce in the bliss that was that long 14-week season, as we probably will for years to come. With another excellent season for our hometown's football team under our belts in 2015, all was looking well.
But just as the 2016 school year wrapped up for my old school, our head football coach of nearly a decade announced that he was leaving for a more prestigious and opportunistic position in the southern area of our state. Coach had already worked for a short time at the school, and they had beaten us badly in the state tournament my sophomore year before dominating the state championship. Now, he is serving as their head football coach and athletic director.
Ouch.
The sting from his "betrayal" is real. The happiness for his new career is possibly even more so. No one can blame him for taking such a great opportunity. Still, his departure hurt for my little hometown, and was a serious blow to our collective gut.
In the end, the head coach of my gloriously unexpected and surprisingly good senior football team is gone. Slowly, the rest of the coaching staff will more than likely follow in his wake. Already teachers have begun leaving for new lives in new places, and all the students I remember seeing every day in the halls for so many years are quickly graduating and moving on.
No one can ever really prepare a person for the shock of moving on to college following the end of one's high school career. Certainly no one can prepare a person to witness the deterioration of the place so dear to a graduate's heart, the one place that seems as though it is never-changing.
No matter the mark that any class or any graduate leaves on his or her hometown, that hometown will constantly grow. That hometown will constantly change. And while there will always be someone in little Dardanelle who can recognize me as one of the Sand Lizard boys that won the title back in 2014, there always be another five that couldn't recognize me or what I was a part of with my name and our story across my forehead.
