High School Football

[Dave]

Yippee

Our season opens tonight at home. We built a new stadium 3 years ago that rivals most collage stadiums. Since my wife and I and several of our friends are volunteers for the Band and Orchestra Parents Association, we get the pleasure of running the concessions. They spared no expense when building the entire complex, including our area.

I get the honor of running 2, six foot long grills. During a typical Friday night I will grill 500 hamburgs and 800-900 hot dogs. I can't wait!!!!

We hosted a semi-final playoff game last year that had us scurrying around. They sold over 12,000 tickets to that game, so that meant a ton of food to prepare.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow of our stadium.

I'm soooo geeked for tonight.

[KBear]

Wow, sounds like a really nice stadium. We have 3 public high schools, 1 private high school (that plays football), and 1 of our universities play football. We are big into college ball (Oklahoma Sooners) and NFL (Dallas Cowboys).

[Justin]

Dave,

You are the man -- this is awesome! I can't believe you cook that much food. My hat is off to you. I can't wait to see the pictures! By the way, I truly hope you are feeling better.

[Dave]

Justin,

Last night was an off night. We played Traverse City West, which is about 4 hours away, so not many people showed up from their team. Total food count was 320 hot dogs and 210 hamburgs. We also sell Pizza Hut pizza and went through 50 of those. Did not know that there were Soccer games and a Cross Country tournament this morning, so at 90 we fired up the grills again. It is such a blast doing this.

Oh, and we won. 35-14

The 500mg Naproxen that I am taking seems to be helping a bit. I'm not nearly as stiff as I was.

All of the picturesItook last night were horrible, so my wife is going to take some new ones. I guess photography is not my calling.

[Dave]

OK. I going to bore some folks with this but for Grand Haven it is huge. Last night was our third game this season. We were 2-0 going into it. Our opponent was the Muskegon Big Reds, the #1 Class A team in the state for the last two years, and in the top 10 of the nation. They were also 2-0 going into the game. Needless to say it was a sellout crowd of around 6,000+ fans. We were up 13-12 with 56 seconds to go. Muskegon was on our 30 yard line, 3rd down and 9 to go. We held them. 4th down 9 to go and the crowd is going nuts on both sides of the field. They go for a 15 yard pass and we intercept. End of game. We won. We beat the Big Reds for the first time since 1986.

So, next week we play Holland West Ottawa at home. They are also undefeated in our division, the toughest one in the state.

Oh, and we did $8300 in concession sales to boot.

[KBear]

That's awesome! I didn't know that high school football was as big of a deal up North as it is here in the South. It is like a cult culture here! We have 3 public high schools in our town, but I haven't really kept up with them since my nephew quit playing.

I'm watching one of the colleges in our town, University of North Texas play Ohio Bobcats and we are winning (we had a horrible season last year)! It is also where my hubby graduated from.

[Dave]

Kathy,

People go nuts for high school football in Michigan. Lines start forming an hour before gates open. Most teams even have their loyal tailgate fans that travel to all the games. We are a class "A" team, which comprises all of the largest schools in the state. Grand Haven enrolls 1800+ every year, with schools like Rockford with well over 2000. Our division OK Red, is the toughest of the tough.

HS football is alive and well in Michigan.

[KBear]

That sounds fun Dave, nice having the community involved with the schools. Our high schools have right at 2,000 students each.

[Justin]

Dave, congratulations on the win! :thumpup: It sounds like it was a great game until the very last play of the game.

How many hot dogs and burgers did you end up cooking? I'm hoping you had some help.

[Cindylou]

Dave, awesome! Sounds like a game on the edge of your seat, until the bitter end. Gotta love it! Like Kathy, I am somewhat surprised, in a really good way, that your area has such a ballistic following for high school football. That's awesome really. I lived in Texas for over 28 years, with all my sons born there. The high school 2 of my 3 boys graduated from, won the class A football championship when my boys were there. Both years the boys were seniors, so 2 years apart. It was incredible! Kathy is right, football in Texas, is truly sensational...alot like the hit tv series, "Friday Night Lights." That's what the show was based after...Texas high school football. We went to every single home game, and frankly, most of the away games as well. And you go even when your kids are out of high school. That's how nuts it is. One year, my sister-in-law and her husband came to visit for a weekend while the boys were still in high school. We took them to a game, of course, and they were blown away. You can't just drive up to the parking lot of the stadium. You have to drop your car off at another destination and take the bus over to the game. Everyone. That's how crazy it is. When we moved to Minnesota 10 years ago Zach was only in 6th grade. What a disappointed when he got to high school. A football game up here was like letting air out of a balloon, slowly. Basketball was and is really the "thing" up here. So, with some disappointment but ever the team players, we jumped on the basketball bandwagon, and our district has won the high school championships for the past 4 years. I think just this past year we lost.

Kathy: ps....because of all the years we lived in Texas, my husband is a HUGE Cowboys fan! He and Mikey went to the pre-season game last week, sat in row 2, and cheered their little hearts out for the Cowboys while they were playing the Minnesota Vikings! And Cowboys won! Me, since I am born here in Minnesota I have to cheer for the Vikings. But I will definitely cheer the Cowboys for any other team they are playing. We love the Pokes!