Starting at the earliest age possible, the kids in my family were involved in one sport or another through most seasons. What sticks out are going to Saturday morning soccer games. Usually the fields were in wooded park land. I spent many autumn mornings lying on or wrapped in a blanket, watching youth soccer, eating concession stand popcorn, smelling the changing leaves in the air.
Hitting high school opened up the breadth of sports outings. All of a sudden there weren't just siblings to watch, there were friends to support and even school spirit to embrace. Despite the qualms I occasionally had with high school, it helped form that trait of deep-seated commitment to a team.
The soccer parents all knew me, I rarely missed a home game, attended away games, Saturday games, and even sat through games in the pouring rain. Our football team was rarely good, but I was in the bleachers for practically every game, driving around to various schools in the conference on Friday nights. Tennis, which became so near and dear to my heart in high school, was my own sport to play in autumn. In the spring, I spent so much time at the boys' meets that I unofficially became the team manager. Throw in some basketball, baseball, even wrestling...what an agenda.
If only college and professional sports came with the same all-you-can-watch pass for one relatively low fee. Instead, the athletes that earn millions of dollars each year cost me at least $50 to watch in person. So sports have become a television-only hobby for the most part. But, I digress. The fact of the matter is that I can smell those autumn days of sports in the air this week. It even manages to make me look back with a tad bit of longing for high school days.
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