Finding Faith ... in the boys taking the field

Carter and his Spuds teammates took the field for the first time this season last Friday.

Carter and his football team took the field for the first time Friday night not to the thunderous roar of a raucous crowd and blaring rock music, but to a subdued crowd and only moderately loud music playing over the public address system.

Our team, the visitor, brought only an extra dozen or so players on the three-hour away game, and we were only allowed 100 fans in the stands. But, don't worry, the home team didn't have much more of an advantage as they were only allowed 150 fans.

During warm-ups each of the teams was spread over about half of the field, and only the absolute necessary personnel were running plays before the game. There was no ceremonious introduction of starting teams, nor the customary meeting of the captains at midfield to call the coin flip.

Running the length of our sidelines were dozens of rubber orange dots that marked where players who were not on the field or in a position meeting were supposed to stand so that they kept their distance from each other.

Coaches roamed the sidelines, looking like desperadoes from the Ol' West itching to rob a bank or a train.

And in the western sky, there was the most bizarrely tinged purple sky that I have ever seen. Frankly, I don't even know how to describe it other than the purple matched the color of the purple Bison mascot of the opposing team, and I have to wonder in these strange days of dystopian fiction come to life, whether the Buffalo High School staff figured out how to color the evening sky in an effort to intimidate us visitors.

To say that Carter's first football game of his senior year was strange is ... well, an understatement.

I've been going to the boys' football games now for some 10 years. Varsity games for about the six or seven. And I've never witnessed anything like that contest. Oh, sure, the football on the field was pretty much the same. Despite all the precautions you can take during a pandemic to keep the sidelines and the pregame more safe, there's little you can do to protect the kids from COVID during the actual play of a football game.

But that is certainly where all of the normalness ended.

As we are all saying about many things right now, it's not the season that we had hoped or prayed for for Carter. There was so much personal disappointment surrounding last season that we had hoped that the joy of this season would cancel that out. But, you know what they say about hoping in one and and shitting in the other. ... You can bet on which one will fill up faster.

So we are adjusting our expectations. Never a fan of putting our kids or our coaches or our fans at risk by playing football this fall, I am nevertheless fully on board at this point. Our kids hopefully will get their full six regular season games, and possibly even a couple of playoff games. And I will be grateful for each and every one of them. Carter has already made up his mind that he isn't playing football in college, and so the countdown is on.

I couldn't be prouder of how he is handling all of it. ... Much better than I am, I think. But, you know, we all internalize the hurts that come our children's way, and I just so badly wanted things to be different for this hard-working, dedicated and loving kid this year.

But, alas, at least on one Friday night, I got to see our boy start as the offensive right tackle for a likely state champion contending team who routed their opponent 56-6 on the opening night of the 2020 Minnesota high school football opening night. And for a brief couple of hours, watching our kids smile and high five and fist bump each other was a tremendous healing balm for a heartbroken father.

Now, I gotta get a hold of that school to see how it that they died the sky for their home opener. ... I still have four nights before our Spuds open up at home, and maybe I can make some magic happen too!