Fall: It's time for football

The other morning on my way into town, I noticed the high school football team practicing on the school field. It was a bright, warm morning; perfect for running errands but probably a bit warm for the boys in full pads running drills. The sight of them, the Cyclones in their red jerseys and white helmets left me a bit nostalgic; I was reminded of yet another change, another transition, underway within our family.

Our sons played football. They started in third grade (it took them the whole season to make a first down) and finished their career with the high school team last fall, their senior year. This is the first August in many years that we haven’t had to organize our schedules around two-a-days.

Next Friday the high school football season opens and I wonder if we’ll feel pulled toward the bright lights. I wonder if the marching band will have learned a new song. I wonder if I’ll miss the sense of community I felt as I stood shoulder to shoulder with friends and neighbors reciting the pledge of allegiance before kickoff.

For my retired student athletes, this has been their most unregimented summer since third grade. No workouts. No weight rooms. No nutrition regime. No expectations. No football. Well, not quite. You see, they’ve graduated not only from something (high school) but to something – fantasy football!!

Yes, friends, it’s fantasy football time, when wannabe football moguls start assessing real NFL players, assembling make-believe teams, then positioning those players against the players of their opposition, which most often are their closest friends and family. The boys are in the league this year, as is my husband, my daughter, my brother (2006 league champion), my niece, my nephew and some of their friends. I think Dad, and certainly uncle Tony, have expectations that my sons do well, at least in the draft. (Don’t draft defense first! Choose a receiver or a running back and for pity’s sake, pick your kicker last!)

Despite the extensive family ties between many of the players participating in the MN versus MI Fantasy Football League, this is serious stuff; these beloved family members of mine will spend the next sixteen weeks trash talking each other’s decisions just to gain points and bragging rights, which are claimed by each week’s winners and, to this day, the 2006 league champion, a.k.a. muffinmonster.

I played one season with these folks and found the competition way too intimidating. When they asked me to play this year, I told them I’d rather face a Cyclone blitz on the five yard line.