The Early Sights & Sounds For a Friday Night

With Friday Night Lights having been a tradition for me well before the phrase Friday Night Lights had ever been heard of, I have found myself at a local high school football field somewhere in this state each week this time of the year since the 1970s.

While I have covered high school football for various publications for three decades, my enjoyment of the sport, as well as the overall experience, has taken place longer than that. It has been much longer in fact.

A tradition for me has always been to get the high school stadium early to allow the maximum opportunity to soak in the environment. I’ve endured some good-natured ribbing for this through the years.

I admit, however, to being the first to arrive at a stadium at times. On occasion the gates are still locked when I roll into the parking lot. Never fear for in these cases I simply listen to high school football talk on a local radio station.

My father has often wondered why I get to the field so early but he knows it’s just something I do.

A few years ago when my alma mater played for back-to-back state football championships I probably set a personal record by arriving at the school at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Through the years during road trips (especially to places I have never been) I will leave early in the afternoon. My thought process has always been to leave time in case I get lost or have a flat tire. I’ve never had a flat tire going to a game (knock on wood) but I have had to stop and ask for directions before (certainly in the pre-Internet on your phone days.)

This past week I was sitting in the press box two hours before kickoff writing these words you are now reading.

In those 120 minutes before kickoff I had the chance to see the visiting team arrive at the stadium. I saw the bands and cheerleaders arrive. I greeted assistant coaches for both schools as they set up their communication equipment in the press box.

I watched as the first players for both teams took the field for pregame warmups. I saw the parent-volunteers fire up the grill to cook hamburgers and hot dogs for the evening.

By the time kickoff actually occurred it seemed I had been here even longer than those 120 minutes.

The music blaring out the PA system tonight is too loud for my taste (plus the fact I didn’t recognize one song that was played) but that was the only negative I could conjure up.

With the summer heat still in full force in mid-September the natural grass on the playing surface was a perfect shade of green, highlighted by the white paint on the yard lines and hash marks. The trees around the stadium have yet to show any sign of fall color and remain as green as they were in the spring.

The pre-fall sky is a nice shade of blue with white clouds dotting the landscape. It is a scene witnessed more times than I can recall on similar Fridays but it is a view which I never grow tired of.

High school football takes part in states all across our country. The tradition is similar in many ways. While high school football is huge in states like Texas, Ohio, California, Pennsylvania and Florida, Georgia more than holds its own.

The tradition matches any other state and the talent in Georgia makes it a frequent stop for college gridiron recruiters from across the country.

Rolling in early each Friday only allows more time to soak it all in for another week. In the past I have written that Friday nights at a local stadium is my reward for making it through another week. I look forward to that award more and more with each passing season.

This writer’s enthusiasm for the sport has not cooled in four decades and likely will not any time soon.

Monticello native Chris Bridges is a long-time newspaper columnist. He welcomes feedback from readers of The Monticello News at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.