Football Fever

Jasper County folks have done come down with the fever, no, not the H1N1, it’s football fever. Piedmont Academy and Jasper County school football teams have been practicing for weeks for the big game when friends, family and fans will fill the stands, and mamas and grandmaws will jump up and and yell words they normally wouldn’t, “Kill ‘em!”

No where on earth is “the pig” more honored than by Southern football. Those oddly-shaped pieces of pigskin sewn together, hard to hold, catch and keep are at the center of all the excitement.

Teachers repeatedly tell their students don’t touch, shove, push, don’t run in the hallways, don’t fight, yet, every football game, they hear the exact opposite from their coaches. Would you think mixed message, maybe?

No football game is complete without the cheerleaders, the Band, the flag team, the water girls, the themed half-time show, the fight song, the prayer before the game, the National Anthem and the people in the stands cheering for their team.

Coaches send in a cryptic-coded play, “paw paw 13 out wet uncle”, the ball is passed, the runner is down-field, catches the ball, shoving, pushing, running, he fights his way to—TOUCHDOWN.

Everyone in the stands are on their feet, players high-five each other, coaches advance the kicking team, cheerleaders jump up and down along with the mamas and grandmaws, and over in a corner somewhere is dear ole dad shedding a tear and saying “That’s my boy!”

Folks, that’s how we do it in the South when you got that Football Fever.