Looking for entertainment? Try a high school game

I have a confession to make. Prior to taking this job with HSSTM, I really wasn't that into high school sports. Sure, on Saturdays in the fall I would breeze over the high school football scores while thumbing to the college sports section, occasionally making sure I caught the results of my alma mater's game. How things have changed. Granted, it's my job to follow high school sports, so I have no choice but pay attention. Still, I could get by simply doing my job and not taking my work home with me as they say. Instead, I commonly notice that as I'm looking over schedules to assign writers and photographers to games, little thought balloons pop up over my head that say, "Hey, that should be a good game, maybe I'll go to that." I don't have to go. I could stay home and have a nice, relaxing night on the sofa in front of the television (which I don't think has been on since college football season ended.) But I actually want to go. The same thing happened to me in a previous job. I was never much of a Major League Baseball fan. I loved the college game, having been at LSU during the Tiger dynasty days in the '90s. (Yes, I had to put that in - Geaux Tigers, BCS national champions.) Alas, I got a call from Major League Baseball to do some work for its web site. Being out at the ball park, being around the players, and being around the games, I suddenly found that I was subconsciously watching baseball scores on the tickers and actually starting to say things like, "He's my favorite pitcher right now." Apparently, I'm simply a sports fan. It's the competition and the games that I'm drawn to. So, perhaps if you paid me to cover competitive Scrabble I might soon thereafter spend nights at the dinner table randomly drawing lettered tiles to see what words I could put together. But I doubt it. Here's my point, because I know I haven't made it clear yet. The competition and play at the high school level can be enticing and even captivating. During the recent Whataburger Tournament, I was openly pulling for a Dunbar-North Crowley championship game because it would have been a blast to watch. During the football playoffs, I was checking the Internet for scores of the teams in our coverage area, pulling for as many as possible to survive another week and give us something else to pay attention to. High school athletes are young and human. They make mistakes. They make games interesting. No, we're not watching the Lebron Jameses and Tom Bradys of the world. They have their place in the professional leagues. We're not even necessarily watching the next Lebron James or Tom Brady. But what we are watching is young men and women compete, play hard, have fun, and entertain us. And I for one am enjoying the entertainment, and encourage others to follow suit.