Friday Night Lights

I believe that nothing can rival the atmosphere and community feeling of a Texas Friday night high school football game.

            Walking through the gates, a crisp cool breeze rushes through your hair. As you make your way to your seat, you hear the band warming up, you see the players stretching. The lights are on, the buzzer sounds, and it’s time - for football.

            I have been going to high school football games for as long as I can remember… but the one game that I didn’t go to is the one I remember best. Southlake Carroll had not been beaten in years, they were an absolute powerhouse, and at the peak of their success. It was a few weeks after Hurricane Rita hit Southeast Texas so my mother and I were going on a trip with my church to do some relief work. I assumed that Southlake was going to kill us so I wasn’t really worried about missing the game. We got a call from my dad that Friday night telling us that the game had just gone into overtime and I was shocked. Coppell had not beaten Southlake in years. My dad called back a few minutes later to say it was going into a second overtime, and I was getting excited. I made him stay on the phone with me and a few minutes later, 500 miles away, I was yelling along with the other ten thousand fans at the stadium. 

The atmosphere of a Texas high school football game, with the whole community rallying around football, simply cannot be beat.