Even when I was in high school, I didn’t invest much time or effort into the high school football games. And that includes one sad season of cheering at said games (I was the unsmiling cheerleader, which was not all that rebellious in hindsight). It didn’t help that I attended a Catholic school, whose team got their butts kicked by opposing public school teams. And then, in the past couple years, I discovered Friday Night Lights (I’ve read the book, and seen the movie, but I’m talking about the TV series). Suddenly the idea of a town so invested in this weekly football contest seemed almost enviable (what a simple thing to care about after all). It was all so unifying and important, and the people involved were not nearly as dumbed-down as I would have expected high school football fanatics to be.  I realize it’s written by scriptwriters and played by (optimistically attractive) actors, but it captures something true nonetheless. There’s something pure about high school football. It’s easy to care about, even if you don’t.

The other night, my husband had the idea to take our three-year-old daughter to a high school football game down the street. We took flashlights, and walked down a short path through the woods leading to the field. We drank water since they were out of hot chocolate and ate cake-mix cupcakes (2 for $1), sat on wet bleachers and watched our local team drive the ball, watched the other players fall, their team members kneeling, reverant, until they stood again; watched the stilted cheers from the ribboned cheerleaders, still learning their moves. It was a strange feeling, a what-am-I-doing-here feeling, but better than sitting on the couch, hearing the cheers from afar.

Anyway, there’s a town in Texas called Canadian (seriously). Which is (and here’s the green part) “remaking itself as a regional center for ecotourism.” This involves hiking trails, prairie dogs, and bird- and prairie chicken-watching. The town is fanatical about its high school “Wildcats” football, sustained by it even as surrounding towns have let themselves go. It helps that they have a local hedge fund manager pumping money into new facilities and extra oil and gas money to go around. But the piece, in The New York Times, captures that mythical allure of high school football…though it should have ended on this line: “‘The bread’s undefeated,’ she said.”