Autumn Fridays

September 28, 2012

It’s fall, and school has been back in session for several weeks now. While I’m a huge summer fan (yes even 100 degree summers) and my favorite sport, baseball, is winding down, that doesn’t mean the competition and fun is over for everyone. All over, football is huge. Of course, you have the NFL games on  Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. Saturday is college football territory, and many fans and alumni converge on college towns and stadiums to cheer on their alma mater or just have huge pride in a team from their state. In a lot of ways, college football has become as popular, if not more so, than the NFL. In fact, some college stadiums, such as the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, seats over 100,000 people.

In keeping with fall football tradition, let’s not forget high school football, sometimes referred to as Friday Night Lights. In many communities, these games become as big a deal as the ones mentioned above, not to mention a source of community pride. Friday evening sportscasts devote, what seems like all of their resources to covering High School games. Now, I was never really big into high school sports back in the day. But I have to admit, I am still very happy when I see Raytown High School has won a game, especially if they defeat Raytown South in the annual Raytown/Raytown South game.

Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger is a book written about the Permian Panthers of Odessa Texas, and shows the pride a community has in its team. This was followed by the TV series by the same name; however, the TV show is based in the fictional town of Dillon, TX. but still shows how the coach and team instill pride in their community. MCPL has the book and TV series in our collection. I enjoyed the first two seasons, but I did not see seasons 3, 4, or 5. Now, I can get them from MCPL.

If you aren’t into fall sports, basketball season will start before you know it, which of course leads to March Madness, another exciting event.

Todd H.
Raytown Branch