What would life be like without football?  I’m not sure but I think it would be called something like “August”.  Nothing is more dreadful than the final weeks of summer.  But nothing is more liberating than the first quarter of preseason games, final cuts, fantasy drafts, T.O. controversies and the rest. 

College football returned last week and I’m off to South Bend to root for a football team of a college I didn’t attend.  Nor do I know anybody who attended.  Nor was I ever friends with anybody who was smart enough to attend.  Yet I live and die with them because my folks whose combined SAT score still couldn’t have gotten them in, make me.  That’s football baby and I’m so glad it’s back.  It’s like a new lease on life.

This year, football returns in more ways than one as it has secured a place in the prime time reality scene.  MTV plucked the easiest idea for a hit show by following around the nationally ranked football team of Hoover High in Alabama.  It features all the clichés of southern football including overbearing coaches, multiple cheerleader girlfriends and of course, a guy named Goose.  Their entire lives seemingly depend on every decision and every play.

We’ve been down this road before and believe me, it hurts.  In the summer of 2001, HBO made its reality television debut with an original gem called ‘Hard Knocks’.  It was a behind the scenes look at the returning Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens training camp.  In other words, it was a way for the Ravens to let Brian Billick burn off some of his ego.

Several big name players were featured but the real story turned out to be the no name rookies who were fighting for one of 48 roster spots.  Their entire lives were encompassed in one six week training camp.  To this day I firmly believe that wasn’t the show’s original intention. 

The onus tended to focus on a lovable giant named Kenny Jackson.  He was a monstrous specimen who bounced at a night club to pay the bills.  Then, on little sleep, he did what he loved by teaching physical education to kids.  Despite his size, he ran a 4.4-40.  Marvin Lewis gave him his shot and the Kenny Jackson bandwagon got top heavy. 

‘Rock Star’ and ‘America Idol’ chronicle people on the door step of their dreams.  However, none of those shows compare to the delicate balance of the ones featuring sports.  The human body is a fragile thing when a freak of nature like Kenny Jackson falls on top of you.  Things can bend the wrong way and it’s humbling when your life’s work is encapsulated in one small tendon.  Read the book ‘Friday Night Lights’ and you’ll know what I mean.

Wednesday night Hoover faced their only legitimate local challenge and their brash quarterback said they would beat Hoover and he backed it up in a big way.  He scored five touchdowns on quarterback keeps and was leading 33-21 late in the game.  Hoover High had me hooked instantly and the threat of losing their undefeated season stung.  Sadly, it brought back more nostalgia to KJ.

I started rooting for Jackson day one when Tony Siragusa made fun of him calling him Keith the rent-a-linebacker.  I stressed every episode when cuts were coming.  When Jamal Lewis, the team’s best player, blew out his knee, all I was thinking was more room for Kenny.  Hope seemed lost every week because each episode would show him exploding down the field on special teams where he would lose his train of thought and look around as if he was trying to figure out if he was on offense or defense.  It was really heart-breaking.  Miraculously, he made it all the way to final cuts.

The final episode was agonizing.  They showed the Turk, the lowly field hand who had to tell people to see the coach, crushing player after player’s hopes and dreams.  And of course, they saved the worst for last.  Kenny Jackson was walking from the cafeteria towards the dorm eating an ice cream cup when the Turk stopped him and said the coach would like to see him.  It wasn’t the most significant reality moment, but it is the one that has stayed with me the longest. 

I wish I could say things ended up different for Hoover.  I wish I could tell you of a more traditional ending.  I wish I could tell you their QB, now concussed after a big hit, still threw a strike on 4^th and 22 and Hoover recovered the ensuing onside kick.  But I can’t do that.  His fourth down pass caromed off his receiver’s hands and disappeared into the darkness like all their dreams of being champs.

There will be no national championship.  There probably won’t even be a state title.  One more loss and there might not even be a show.  Sometimes fairy tales don’t have happy endings.  Sometimes you build yourself up so high and you dream so big that you never want to wake up.  Because when you do, all that’s left is that bad taste in your mouth.  Sometimes that taste is ice cream.

Just ask Kenny Jackson.