It's that time of year again!

Every year, there comes a day that is unlike any of the two hundred and thirty or so days that have come before it.

I wake up, get dressed, go outside, and with the first breath taken in my brain automatically thinks one thing. Football.

I don’t know exactly what it is. It’s got to be some kind of endorphin. Something triggers my senses. It’s not exactly like how my left knee can tell me when it’s going to rain in four and a half hours. That’s more of an ache. This is a smell, a temperature, atmospheric pressure, I don’t know. But I do know that when it happens, it’s going to be a good day.

My mood automatically gets better. I’m ready to hear the pads popping, the inaudible grunts, the whistles, it’s all right there in my head. I’m smiling from ear to ear. I know that for the next five or six months, my weekends are set.

This past weekend, I got that “feeling”. That scent, or sense.

Now, it wasn’t that long ago that I would say how I’d love to play just one more game. Put the pads on one more time. Nowadays, I say just one more play. And the EMTs had better be on alert!

I used to see how old the referees and coaches were. Now, I’m older than most of them, and that is OK. I will never outgrow the dreams in my head to be out on the field one more time, but I am smart enough to know it is just a dream. I like my knee ligaments where they are!

These days, I live my dream through our high school players. Get my ‘one more big hit’ through their eyes. Have one more pancake block to spring the running back for a TD. This is their season now. I hope they appreciate it while they can still play.