Friday, my niece Emma asked me if I’d like to go to her high school’s first football game of the season; kick-off at 6:30 the following day. “You like sports, right?” she asked me, already knowing the answer. “It’s kind of a big deal,” she went on to explain. “We’re playing St. Ignatius,” she added, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement on the magnitude of the contest. “Catholic League against Public League. We don’t really play Catholic League schools much. It’s played in Soldier Field, so that makes it an extra big deal. We lost the game last year.”
Yes, I love football, but I can’t say that attending a Friday Night Lights type of event qualifies as football based on my decades of Sunday afternoons spent as an NFL addled couch potato. High school football barely resembles the sport as I know it. And I wasn’t very familiar with the rivalry either.
John asked me, “What’s her angle? Does she need a ride? Wouldn’t she rather go with her friends?”
All good questions and, after multiple texts back and forth with Emma, I was able to piece together a few more facts, although her motivation for asking me was still not completely clear? Yes, she was planning on going with her friends. No, she didn’t need a ride. She didn’t even plan to sit with John and me (although she liked the idea of inviting a friend and joining John and me for dinner afterwards). Not having much experience in the world of high school sports, I decided it might be fun and confirmed plans to meet her at the iconic stadium on Chicago’s lakefront. En route, she texted me that she would be late. Ah teenagers.
With an expected turnout of three to four thousand fans, mostly proud parents, teachers in weekend casual attire, and hordes of team-spirited underclassmen wearing tees and face paint in school colors, it did, in fact, turn out to be a new fan experience. Seeing so many hugging and squealing sixteen year-old girls and equally cliquey, but less hyper, packs of boys was kind of charming. They went wild when they saw themselves projected on the stadium’s jumbo scoreboard. Their enthusiasm was infectious. Go Dolphins!
I had never copped a seat in Soldier Field so close to the action. John and I sat on the forty yard-line, in about the 10th row. Tickets that could run in the hundreds cost us $10. Neither AT&T nor Dunkin Donuts sponsored any type of contest. There were no timeouts for commercials. No beer was served at the concession stands, and I don’t think the kicker from either team could have scored a field goal from as far back as the fifteen yard line. The score was 0-0 at the end of regulation, a tie that was broken by a Whitney Young touchdown pass and sideline run that started at the St. Ignatius twenty, a spot awarded each team along with a set of downs for such occasions. Thank God for high school rules. I don’t think I could have endured a scoreless overtime period.
Yea! We won. We won. We won. The Dolphins beat the Wolf Pack. I felt bad that I wasn’t wearing my orange shirt. I was hoping the kid who played both offense and defense got over his leg cramps. Even though no son of mine was in the game or daughter was cheering in the front row, I found myself feeling attached to everyone seated on the west side of the field. I thought about what a great thrill it must be for the players to open their season on the same turf their beloved Bears call home. I contemplated all the sleepovers the girls would be having later, how they’d re-hash the action in the stands, gossip about whom was going out and whom, what teachers they ran into and what they thought about them. I became worried about whether everyone had rides.
Sometimes a game is not about the game, not about the outcome. It’s about feeling like an adult and a kid at the same time. It’s about hanging out with your tribe…and that’s no small thing. (Go Dolphins!)
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