Football, football, football

First of all, it is too hot to go to a football game in August in Florida. A couple of years ago, my friend Peggy asked me if I'd like to get a season's ticket for the local high school team. I thought, "Why not?" So I got those tickets and went to the first game, which was some time in August...hot and humid. It was hot sitting in those bleachers. I can't begin to imagine what it was like on the field for the football players and for the members of the band in those uniforms.

I had not been to a high school football game since 1959 when I was a senior in high school. Returning to the stadium just a few blocks from my home where I had watched football games since I was a child was a real eye opener. When I was in high school, we were still segregated, so everything was lily white. Girls came to the games reasonably attired. I won't say any more here. Vicki recently went to a Cubs game at Wrigley field and described quite well some of the attire there. If you read her description, you can transpose that here...maybe not quite so bad.

I had tickets last year, but I did not use many of them since I went to be with my son and his family in Virginia. So I'm trying again this year. Did I think it would be cooler? Not really, but I was hoping. Friday night when I went, there was a little bit of a breeze, but it quieted down. The game was not too exciting either. The home team, one of the larger high schools in the county was playing another high school, which is not nearly as large and has a hard time fielding a good team. So the game was not too interesting. I left after half-time and came home to my cool house and got geared up for Saturday's game.

When my son went to Penn State, I began following the Nittany Lions and have, since 1998, watched their games with Penn State alums and friends at a sports bar in Sarasota. It's always a great time, especially when the favorite team is winning. They've had some rough years lately, but seem to be on the upswing again. Yesterday was a game between a storied team and FIU, a commuter university in Miami that only instituted a football program in 2002. I believe the newspaper said that they had not won a game at all last season. The game ended up being a blowout for Penn State (59-0.) JoePa tries not to run up the score, but even with the third string team in, they scored.

The favorite moment of the day was when the game was over, and the TV switched over to the last few moments of the Michigan-Appalachian State game. Wow! That was probably Penn State's favorite moment. (Sorry, Vicki, if you're reading this.) One article said this morning that Michigan probably figured this game would be a tuneup for the regular conference play. They got the shock of their lives. As one Penn Stater said, "You know good and well that when we play them, they're going to be madder than h*ll."

I asked someone when I first started watching the games why these smaller schools play the big boys, and the answer was "money." I read this morning that Appalachian State took home $400,000 from the game.

Everyone was saying, "Where is Appalachian State?" I would have won the trivia prize yesterday. Back when, Appalachian State was Appalachian State Teachers College, and it was located in Boone, North Carolina. (It still is.) Teachers from Florida would go there in the summers to work on graduate degrees because they could escape the Florida heat and go to school at the same time. Not a bad idea!

As has often been said, anyone can be beaten on any given day.

And for all the undue emphasis on athletics, I still love it. I love college football. I even love baseball, even the Tampa Bay Rays, who one of these days, are going to win lots of games.