On Football Season

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of posts on social media about the return of "football season." Most of these posts are celebratory--even those who aren't die hard football fans seem to embrace the culture that is another season of weekend afternoons on the couch, cooler weather, warm chili, cozy sweatshirts and good beer.

Trust me when I say, I LOVE chili and beer.

So spending some extra hours on Saturday and Sunday curled up on the couch browsing Pinterest while my die-hard-fan hubby watches the biggest games of the weekend really sounds quite lovely. I'm even willing to throw on a Browns hoodie if the mood strikes me.

But for us, football season is much more than a couple Saturday and Sunday games viewed from the comfort of our couch, and then a return back to the usual routine on Monday.

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Football season here, as a coach's family, is pretty much all day every day. I've talked to a lot of coaches' wives who all sing the same tune--its really hard to understand how all-encompassing the season is unless you've experienced it. 

Football is really a year-round event for a high school coach, as the weight room is open every day after school and each coach is expected to make regular appearances at lifting. In July, there are a handful of practices. Come August 1, things really kick into high gear, beginning with a week-long, all day/night camp in which the coaches are expected to stay at the school overnight for at least half of the camp days. Practices are every day in August, and once school starts, Tom leaves for work around 6:45 a.m. and gets home around 6:45 p.m. Varsity plays on Friday nights, and the team eats dinner together, so Tom is at the school for about 16 hours on Fridays. Then the JV team plays on Saturday mornings and they usually finish up around 1 p.m. For those of not counting (I wasn't either, until I started writing this), that all adds up to a 6-day, roughly 70-hour work week for Tom (and that doesn't even count the 2-ish hours he spends at home every night grading, lesson planning, and film-watching). About 30 of those 70 hours are football hours.

Throwback from last year's Cheer Camp night.

Another 2014 season post-game pic.

What does that mean for the girls and I? Since the girls go to bed between 6:30 and 7, it means dinners without Tom during the week. It means they're lucky to see their dad for twenty minutes Monday through Friday. It means lots of grilled cheese and pizza for dinner. It means missing out on Saturday-morning events and pretty much anything out-of-town during the fall. It means the grass doesn't get cut nearly as often. It means that my girls spend Saturday exhausted from staying up way past their bedtime on Friday. It means that Sundays are pretty sacred here. Its the one day of the week that our lives aren't dictated by a football schedule, and its the one day that we have completely as a family. It means that Tom's football coaching job is really all of our coaching job.

A recent Sunday afternoon horsey-ride.

We learn to appreciate these "all of us together" moments that sometimes feel too few and far between in the fall.

So why do we do it? (I'll give you a hint--its not the money.) I have a serious love/hate relationship with football season. Every year, I struggle with the transition into the season, but every year I also find myself learning to appreciate the whole experience a little more. We do it because of the way the cheerleaders enthusiastically greet Libby on Friday nights and because of the sheer joy on her face when she stands among them doing the Baron Rumble. We do it because of the way that Juliet, at one year old, points at the stadium lights when we pull in for varsity games and yells, "Football! Football!" We do it because of the friendships I have made with other coaches wives and the sideline conversations we have while chasing toddlers on Friday nights. We do it because concession stand nachos are delicious. (Okay, that one was only partially true). Really and truly, mostly we do it because this is what Tom does best. We believe in the power of good coaches and we believe that what Tom does is so important. I knew long before I married him that this was part of the package, and seeing him live out his dream is worth every rough moment.

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Thanks to football season, my girls know their way around a high school stadium better than they know their way around a playground. I, who never really watched a football game in its entirety for the first 22 years of my life, now attend two games a week on most weeks and could probably spot a holding call a mile away (if my life depended on it.) In an ironic life twist for me, we are a football family. Football is what we do.

So here's to popcorn for dinner. Here's to team water bottles in my dishwasher. Here's to owning more gold shirts than one should ever own. Here's to long weeks and too-short weekends and late Friday nights. Here's to football.