Wixon: Football in Texas is quite a treat
Column by MATT WIXON / The Dallas Morning News
mwixon@dallasnews.com
Last Saturday offered one of the final warm afternoons of the year. SMU and Texas also played home games that day, and nationally ranked Texas A&M and Nebraska battled in College Station.
All were reasons to stay away from Cowboys Stadium. And yet 40,000 people showed up for a high school football game.
"Were there really 40,000 people there?" a fan asked about the Euless Trinity-Allen game. "Is that the most ever?"
No, it's only the most since last year, when Southlake Carroll and Allen attracted a similar crowd. There was a crowd of more than 46,000 for a game four years ago, and next month, the crowd for the state championship games at Cowboys Stadium could break the state record for attendance of 49,953 set in 1977.
So what does this all lead to on Thanksgiving?
Well, today is about giving thanks. It's about appreciating the blessings of health, family and living in this country. Those are all much higher priorities than anything related to sports, but it's easy to sing the praises of Texas high school football.
High school football is wonderful anywhere in the country, whether at a tiny outpost or at a school that resembles a small college, but it's different here. It's bigger, it's better, and can unify a community like few other things.
And it grabs fans at an early age. My 5-year-old son, Cooper, attended his first high school football game this year. It wasn't a matchup of powerhouses, but he was wowed by the experience.
Now playing catch with a football in the backyard isn't enough. Cooper must recreate a football game, with a band playing, officials blowing whistles and a public-address announcer. Before each "game," he and his brothers have to gather in one corner of the yard and pretend to run through an inflatable tunnel.
His visit to a game made an impression, obviously. And Texas high school football also makes an impression on those from outside the Lone Star State. A few years ago, I talked with 68-year-old Jim Wyckoff of Fairfax, Va., while he was attending his first Texas high school football game.
He flew into Texas specifically to see a game here.
"Texas has always been known as a great football state," he told me. "I've kind of dreamed of seeing what it's like."
Wyckoff said got goose bumps at the game. He called it "a moving experience."
Just imagine if he'd been at the Carroll-Trinity game in 2006 that drew 46,339 fans to Texas Stadium. Riley Dodge was Carroll's quarterback then, and now that he's a quarterback at UNT, he tells college teammates what it was like to play in one of the biggest high school games ever.
The teammates, especially those from outside of Texas, are stunned that nearly 50,000 people were at the game.
"I try to explain to them about Texas high school football," Dodge says.
It can be hard to explain.
But around here, it's easy to experience. And as we stuff ourselves with turkey and prepare for two days stuffed with playoff games, that's reason to give thanks.
