For high school you, Friday nights in the fall could have meant any number of things. One thing, however, is certain and that is that you made it through one more school week. It is the first night of the weekend and there is no way you’re letting anybody get you down. If you're lucky, your best friend is having a huge party because his parents went away for the weekend and they were promised "it will only be 4-5 guys over... okay 6 max", and "no Mom we aren't gonna have any beer. I'm not 21. I wouldn't even know where to get it".
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The plan seems rock-solid and that girl from your World History class will definitely be there, so all that’s left to do is wait. But most importantly, if you grew up in a town like mine, nothing in this plan is happening until after the big game.
It seems almost silly at times; the whole town going down to the high school to watch the "big game" every Friday night in the fall for as long as you can remember. Didn't it ever get old? The answer, if you didn't already know from reading the title of this article, is a resounding "No". The fact of the matter is that just about every school, in just about every state in this great country loves high school football. America loves many things. Money? Yes. Freedom? Absolutely. Big macs? Also yes—although somehow they never quite look the way they do in the commercials....
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But paramount among America's own great love stories is that of America and winning. It's kind of our thing. Australia has kangaroos. Italy has pizza. Colombia has cocaine. And America, we have winning. American history is a history of winning; be it Olympic medals, World Wars, lunar landings, or hell, even hot-dog-eating competitions. (Shoutout to Jimmy Chestnut).
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There is nothing America loves more than winning. Sports rely on the idea of there being something to win, so naturally America loves those too. America
loves high school sports, however, because they offer fans an access that would
be impossible anywhere else. When you watch high school sports, you know the
players, the coaches, and even the water boy. You’re invested in the team,
because no matter what hardships you face, or what troubles currently plague
your town, for 3 hours every Friday evening in the fall, one group of people
gets to prove to everyone that they are the best team. It doesn’t matter that
it’s just a football game. In fact, the saying "just a football game"
is considered sacrilege in well over half of the high schools in this country.
A win on Friday meant another big reason on the list of why WE are better than YOU.
It didn't matter if you were a player, a cheerleader, a trombonist (if that's
the correct word) or one of the kids half naked in the first row, with your whole
body painted green, because the soccer team was the Homecoming halftime show
(long story).
None of that made a difference because your team — and by extension, your community — was better than the other guys. If you grew up in a town like mine, the saying "it takes a village" can't begin to explain the sense of community. The feeling of a community winning is unmatched — for everyone within. No matter how much division is present in this country, when your town’s team wins on Friday you’re going to be happy. You could be black, white, purple, tall, short, fat, skinny, nerdy — none of that matters. Winning takes it all away. That's what made high school football what it is today. Deep down we all possess a desire for unity. Yes, winning is great. But it is something meant to be shared. Winning gets hyped up a lot, and will always be better than you could have ever imagined, but when you have no one to share it with, it loses something. This is proven time and time again. For example, when a team wins a state title, everyone on the team and all the coaches get rings. It's proven even more so beyond high school. When professional teams win titles there are parades and celebrations to thank the teams supporters, and when Notre Dame beat Michigan 31-0 under the lights, the team and coaches marched right over to the student section to sing the alma mater.
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This idea can be seen everywhere in our daily lives, but it is never felt more clearly than on high school football fields. High school football is the most elemental, innocent, and purest expression of these desires. The whole town comes together to support the team, but it's so much more than that. Parents go to see their sons, or their daughters. College students back in town go to see their friend's younger brother who they watched grow up, and to re-live their own "glory days". Young children come to be the ball-boys and to hopefully get a chance to talk to the star quarterback, their idol, after the game. Families with no children involved at all will go to feel the sense of community that can be replicated nowhere else on this Earth. No one is there for money. No one is there for fame. But everyone is there for each other, and everyone is there to win. What could be more American than that?
