Take me out to the (foot)ball game

I graduated from Stillwater High School in 1993. Leaving out my junior year, which I spent in Sweden, I was a Pony for two years and an Oak Land Junior High Raider for three years before that. I played sports -- well, JV soccer and JV cross country skiing -- and I took part in activities. And yet I realize now I have spent more time at Irish Stadium watching the RHS football team than I ever spent watching football teams that had a fair degree of success.
I guess I wasn't what you'd call filled with school spirit. But if the Irish games I have attended in recent years are any indication I might have missed out. I skipped games when I was a student because I had no particular interest in high school football.
The thing I’m realizing, though, is that an interest in football is not even remotely necessary for the students who attend high school football games. Last Friday I attended Rosemount’s game against top-rated Eden Prairie. It was a big game. And I'm convinced there were students there who did not know at any point what the score actually was.
It was last week's game that really drove this message home. Going to a high school football game isn't about football. It's about getting together with friends. It's an excuse to sit outside on a nice fall night or to stand by the fence and talk about nothing at all and especially not what's happening on the field. The younger the student, the truer that seemed to be.
At Irish Stadium there seemed to be at least four groups of fans, at least among the students.
At the top were the Superfans. They're the ones who paint their bodies funny colors and wear goofy outfits and jump and scream and cheer all game long. They're the ones who actually care about what's happening on the field. Or, they had enough school spirit to pretend they did. Or, I suppose, they just liked to yell.
I wouldn’t have been a Superfan in high school. I probably would have been the one making fun of the Superfans with my friends.
After the Superfans were the regular fans. They're the ones who showed up early enough to get a seat in the bleachers and probably spent most of their time paying attention to the game. If you had asked them at halftime they probably could have told you the schedule. Or at least known where the scoreboard was. Or what sport they were watching.
Next were the casual fans. They typically stood by the fence and spent most of their time talking to each other but turned their head toward the field every once in a while. It’s not clear they were actually watching the game, but they at least could have made that argument.
Finally, there were the nonfans. They could have been at the mall or in someone's basement or on Ellis Island for all the attention they paid to the game. They were at the stadium primarily because it was Friday night and that was where students were supposed to be.
For the most part, interest in the game tended to exist in inverse proportion to the student's age. For whatever reason, high school seniors appeared to care a lot more about how their team was doing than their freshman counterparts and freshmen, even the ones standing by the fence, were showing infinitely more interest than the middle- and grade-schoolers who couldn't even be bothered to stay in the stadium during the game. At any given time there appeared to be four or five pick-up football games taking place on the fields outside the stadium. It's not clear whether this group -- and there were hundreds of them -- even bought tickets to the game. The games could have been played just about anywhere. Aside from the occasional cheer and the noise from the PA system they might not have known there was an actual sanctioned game going on.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of this. More than just about any other activity, high school football games are about building community. There's something great about seeing those football games going on. Presumably, at least some of the kids playing did not know each other when they started playing. And given the things everyone keeps saying about Americans all being fat and lazy, playing a little touch football seems like a better way to spend a Friday night than sitting around and watching America's Funniest Videos.
I’m starting to think I missed out 13 years ago.