I enjoy reading By the
Way, the Times-Gazette’s review of the entertaining odds and ends from
around the county that’s published each Saturday. A recent comment noted that the Ashland
police had a number of calls concerning what sounded like a cannon being fired
throughout the evening. You guessed it –
it was the celebratory cannon at Jack Miller stadium, as the Ashland University
Eagles scored against their opponents.
Yes, my Ashland friends, football is back! I’ve had my first popcorn at Community
Stadium, and all is right with the world.
Still waiting for those funnel cake fries at AU!
I’ll agree not to write about the
Cleveland Browns if you don’t remind me how badly the Buffalo Bills are doing –
again. Hope springs eternal, but it just
doesn’t’ seem right that Cleveland and Buffalo sports fans can’t catch a
break. Out of the 19 million people who
play fantasy football, at least half of them are probably discouraged Browns or
Bills fans – at least in fantasy football they stand a chance of winning! OK, I’ll stop now, because football isn’t
really about the Browns, the Bills and the team that wears black and gold. No, we’ve got high school and college football!
Ohioans watch with delight as the
Buckeyes march up and down the field at the Horseshoe. And Eagle fever has taken hold in our town as
we head to the stadium or listen for the cannon, especially since our hometown
boys are finding success on the campus gridiron. But still, there’s nothing like Friday night
at a high school football game
What continues to draw Ashland
county residents to watch the Arrows, Mounties, Redbirds Falcons and Pirates? After all, it’s just a game, and potentially
a risky game at that. I was disappointed
but also relieved when our oldest son chose marching band over football,
although when I saw him playing a bass drum while standing on his head, I did
cringe a bit. But athletics, like life, involves
risk, and participation in high school sports helps our adolescents focus on
achievement, train their bodies, and trust their team – lessons that will last
well into adulthood.
Yet it’s so much more than a
game. My high school had the tradition
of a T-NT game that concluded the regular season as Tonawanda battled North
Tonawanda for the championship of the twin cities – nearly as spirited as the
Massillon-McKinley rivalry. A car
parade, pep rally and bonfire led up to the football contest, and as we cheered
our team on, it was with a spirit of community pride. It sounds silly from the perspective of
nearly 40 years, but we were proud to sing, “We are the warriors, the mighty,
mighty warriors, everywhere we go, people ought to know, who we are, so we tell
them.” Win or lose (and we lost more
than we won), we were proud to be from Tonawanda High School. School pride, community pride – Friday nights
help us to stand tall.
It’s also about perseverance. I want
to give a perseverance shout-out to the Mapleton Mounties. They’ve struggled on the football field for
quite some time, and lost their first game of this season this year. We watched Coach Ray Frisbee play for
GlenOak and AU, and felt his pain with
that one more opening loss. Yet Ray had
hope: “We obviously wanted a better first half but we'll regroup and find a way
to get better by next week.” That’s what
perseverance is about, and the next two weeks brought two wins to their record. That’s a lesson we want to teach our kids.
And ultimately, it’s about our kids. While there’s only one star quarterback per
team, there are hundreds of kids in Ashland County who practice day in and day
out, play in the band, leap into the air
on the cheerleader squad, excel on the soccer field, golf course and cross
country trail, and rock the student
section of the stadium. On Friday
nights, we as a community have the opportunity to embrace our kids, honor their
perseverance, and send them the message, “we’ve got your back.”
Fight on, Arrows, Mounties,
Falcons, Redbirds and Pirates. See you
Friday night!
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