The Observer, November 18, 2005
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11
High school football is a worthy and fun-filled pastime
A new administration and strategy is being mapped out in City Hall. Although these next four years will offer plenty of opportunities for change and improvement in schools or city services, one constant remains in Northeast Ohio. This institution is a definitive strength, a cause for pride, and one that has not changed in nearly a century. The greater Cleveland area is home to some of the best high school football in the country – a statement that relates to more than athletics, but rather implies a broader statement about tradition and character.
In a city that bleeds brown and orange, high school football has the ability to define a community. Friday evenings in Cleveland were designed especially for this beloved pastime – crisp weather that could run the gambit from snow and hail storms to gusting winds. Parents, friends, alumni, and other members from the community trek to their school's game with a blanket and $1.50 for hot chocolate sold by the baseball and softball teams. Then, when the sun sets and stadium lights shine down, there is a special feeling indescribable to those who have never felt it.
No matter where one travels on the weekends of autumn, it is clear to see the impact high school football has on the area – and vice versa. A good observer can clearly see more than just school colors from a Friday night game. In some areas, the football game is merely an afterthought as most of the crowd is there to support the marching band or get seen for public image. There are football programs steeped in tradition – third- and fourth-generation young men wear the family number while their father, uncle, and grandfather tear up during Senior Night. Yet by traveling cross-town there is a game where the stakes are big – without a great performance, some player may lose his only chance at going to college. True stories of Cleveland are found under the lights of Friday night football.
The phenomenon of high school football turns seventeen-year-old boys into local stars or scapegoats depending on the outcome of the game. With 20,000 fans producing a deafening roar, a single play can catapult a young man into local legend status or drop his team into the ranks of "every other team." In some communities boys are groomed from age six or even younger with the dreams of glory for their schools; a Midwest ideal based upon pride and tradition.
This weekend highlights the exemplary ideals of high school football in Northeast Ohio: Glenville and St. Edward will face each other Saturday night. Not only are these teams ranked first and second in local polls, but they are both undefeated and are repeating a playoff meeting from last season. This game further shows the community relationship: two dominating football programs, but one is a private-Catholic powerhouse while the other is one of the poorest neighborhoods from the Cleveland Public School district. One of the teams is primarily black, the other white. West side versus East side. The list goes on, but one common denominator remains for both teams: this game means more to the community than most civic issues and the memories from this Saturday will long outlast any changes to happen in Cleveland over the next four years.
After the game, fans will file out of the stands talking about how the state championship game will play out. Proud parents will beam at their sons who lie face-down on the turf, crying because high school football is over. And those young men will be immortalized in the magical moment under the lights.
If you really want to get a slice of Cleveland, go to the game this weekend with the 10,000 others: St. Edward vs. Glenville, Saturday 7 p.m., Byers Field in Parma.
