Wednesday Night Lights.

I love football. Well, I love watching my kids play it, anyway. Mathews boys must play football. I was allowed to quit baseball (which is just as well. I wasn't very good at baseball), but there was no question that I would not be allowed to quit football. Dear Old Dad told my brother, the Amazing Ultra-Marathoner, AndyMan, and I (er, that's just two of us there. I know it sounds like three, but it's two) that he'd been honorable mention All-State at offensive guard back at Natrona County H.S. Okay, I'll grant you, the State was Wyoming, but it's still a State. Andy was a guard. I was a guard. I was bigger, faster, and stronger than my brother, but he was better. Andy was better than I was, because he tried his best every play. A few years ago, I asked him why he did every stupid thing that our coaches asked him to do over our years of football, and he told me, "It never occurred to me not to". That dogged determination has helped AndyMan to become an amazing athlete even now. He runs 100-mile events now. Boggles my mind, it does.

My oldest son was like his Uncle Andy in that way. Also like his dad and his uncle, Davis was a guard. He played defensive end, too. He never got heavier than 155 pounds, but he was good. Got the "Coach's Award" from Thomas Heyward Academy. Made a few of the prettiest plays on both offense and defense that I've ever seen. He studies poetry and classical languages in his senior year at Sewanee (The University of the South).

The Lads are like their Uncle Andy, too. They played their first game for the Forest Circle Middle School "Falcons" last night, which the Falcons won, six to nothing. They started at defensive end and offensive tackle as bookends. Taylor played all but three plays in the game; Tyler was only off the field for the one kick-off the Falcons received. Their blocking was stellar. Taylor had probably twelve tackles, including the first three tackles of the game and four "sacks"; Tyler had probably seven tackles, including three sacks. On one play they combined for a tackle of the running back behind the line of scrimmage- something they call a TnT slamwich. They were also prominent in a "goal-line stand". The other team, the Ruffin "Patriots"- who were supposed to be the best team in the league and who practiced two weeks longer than our squad- had the ball first and goal in a 6-0 ballgame with two minutes left in the game, and the Falcons kept them out of the end-zone. During the game the Principal came up and sat with me. One of the Lads had, unfortunately, already met with the Principal on some, uh... other matters, so it was a nice gesture. One of the players on the other team told my boys that they were the best on the field. It's probably wrong for fathers to try to bask in the reflected light of their sons' athletic glory. It's probably wrong.