You've got 22 people that could start if you run a separate offensive and defensive unit, plus all the substitutes and special teams players. If you include 50 kids, you've got all their parents and friends and relatives, so naturally it's going to seem like a bigger deal because you have more people involved. The crowds are not just parents supporting their kids. We also love football because we have played the game, reasoned Ken Splawn, a 16-year football coach who is now an elementary school principal in Perryton. Football on campus dates back to the 1920s for many area high schools.
Tradition brings yesterday's players to today's games for proverbial family reunions.
And you may still be a family 20 years later. I see that in sports. Then again, maybe we love football for a far less noble reason - maybe it's the violence. I don't like to put it in that perspective, but when I played, it seemed like the harder I hit, the better I felt, and the quicker I got up and hit somebody else. Maybe there is something to be said for getting your frustrations out.