There are football games where you walk away talking about the score, and then there are football games where you walk away with about seventeen different stories you want to tell. Friday night against China Spring was the latter. The Tigers came away with a 42-39 win, moved to 3-1, and apparently decided that those of us who enjoyed the relatively stress-free defensive performance against Godley needed our cardiovascular systems tested. Nothing says Friday night entertainment quite like looking at the scoreboard, looking at the clock, looking back at the scoreboard, and wondering whether your Apple Watch is about to call 911 on your behalf. But what a football game. More importantly, I saw progress. I saw urgency. I saw adjustments. I saw some kids who looked a little more comfortable than they did a week ago and a football team beginning to understand what it can become. Offensively, the numbers were some of the biggest we've seen this year. Judd Connally looked like he had somewhere to be and was already running late. When the grass was there, he took it. When Glen Rose needed yards, he used his legs. When the play required him to put his head down and go, that's what he did. He finished with 235 yards rushing, three touchdowns on the ground and another 216 yards through the air. That's 451 yards of offense from #5, and even I can do enough math to determine that's a lot. The number isn't what interested me most, though. It was the urgency. Judd looked decisive, the offense looked more purposeful, and some of the adjustments Coach Pair and his staff have been working through seem to be showing their colors. Progress! That's what a good football program should show. I don't expect perfection in September. Fix something, build something, learn something, come back Friday and be better at it. That's Glen Rose football, and I've thought a lot about that lately because I think there's something about this program we sometimes take for granted. We aren't Carthage. We aren't Aledo. We're Glen Rose. I don't say that as criticism of the talent wearing red and white, quite the opposite. We've got talented kids, strong kids, fast kids, smart kids and kids who can flat-out play football. But Glen Rose football hasn't historically been built around the assumption that every Friday we're simply going to trot onto the field bigger, faster and stronger than everybody standing across from us. We learn football. That's always been one of the things I've loved about this program. Our kids learn assignments, leverage, timing, recognition and responsibility. They learn where they're supposed to be, but more importantly, why they're supposed to be there. They learn that you don't have to touch the football to affect a play and you don't have to make the tackle to cause the turnover. Sometimes your entire job is to occupy one guy for two seconds so your teammate can become the hero. Do your job, trust the guy beside you and recognize the opportunity when it comes. Friday night, Diego Flores gave us one of the best examples you'll ever see. China Spring throws the football, a Tiger gets a hand on it and suddenly that ball is floating around looking for a new owner. Diego volunteered. He grabbed the deflection and started running, and kept running, and kept running. About 100 yards of football field, Cougars and bad intentions stood between Diego and the other end zone, and somehow that kid navigated the whole thing like somebody had handed him a map. Dora? (Sorry, I had to) Go back and watch the Tigers around him, though. The second they realized Diego had the football; the defense became an offense. Heads started turning, guys started looking for somebody to block, players positioned themselves downfield and Diego suddenly had an escort service. That's what I mean when I talk about knowing football. Diego made the spectacular play, but ten other Tigers immediately understood that their job had changed. One hundred yards later, touchdown Glen Rose. Then there's Ty Simmons. I don't know what opposing ball carriers have done to Ty personally, but apparently he has determined they are no longer responsible enough to possess a football. Ty has been popping balls out like he's checking watermelons at H-E-B. Thump. Nope. Thump. Not that one. I'll take this one. He's making plays and taking names this year, and he's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore because he keeps showing up everywhere. Defensively he's around the football causing problems, then Friday night he turns around and catches three passes for 84 yards. That's 28 yards every time the kid caught the football. Some kids have a position. Ty appears to have an appointment with wherever the football happens to be. He's not alone in finding his groove. Cross Littlejohn, Luke Boyett, Cash Henrich, Kaiden Shannon, Jacob Willey, Rylan Burch, Jayden Garza, Big Mike, Diego, Ty, the Sullivan brothers, different Friday nights and different situations, but more and more names keep showing up. That's what I want to see. Luke Boyett, two-zero, gave everybody a pretty good scare last week. Oh Boy, yet, man I'm glad he's okay, and I'm glad to see that kid continuing to settle into his role. Cash and Kaiden keep finding themselves around the football. Willey continues doing his job. Cross gives this offense another weapon defenses have to account for. Burch looks more comfortable every Friday. The list could go on and on regarding every player on this team. Confidence doesn't always arrive all at once. Sometimes you can actually watch it being built. A kid makes one play, next week he makes two, and pretty soon he isn't hoping he's in the right place anymore. He knows he's in the right place. That's when football gets fun. Up front, Jayden Garza and Big Mike are becoming a couple of pretty substantial anchors, and I mean "substantial" in nearly every available definition. I'm still convinced Big Mike works out in his sleep. Mattress is a weight bench, pillow is a 45-pound plate, blanket is a tow chain, and when the alarm goes off at six he doesn't hit snooze, he benches it. Jayden Garza doesn't exactly look like he's surviving on celery and positive thoughts either. Those are two strong young men anchoring the defensive front, but strength isn't the only thing they're bringing. They're learning how their work creates opportunities for everybody behind them. Eat a block, close a gap, move the runner, collapse the pocket, and let Burch, Willey, Diego, Ty and the rest come clean it up. That's the kind of work that doesn't always show up in a headline, but it sure shows up on Friday night. Speaking of Burch, I'm admittedly a little biased toward #33. I wore 33, my oldest wore 33, and Gage wore 33 and graduated in it last year. So yes, I notice 33. I can't help it. But here's the cool part, it isn't our number anymore. It's Rylan's, and he's beginning to make it his own. Burch is finding his groove at linebacker and growing into a position where Glen Rose has seen some pretty good football players before him. There's something special about watching another Tiger wearing that number, knowing where it's been, and wondering where he's going to take it next. Go take it somewhere, Burch. There's another number I can't just move past, and that's #77. I've had more fun watching Clark Anderson play football, and probably more fun writing about him, than I have any business admitting. Clark is just fun. He's enormous, he's funny, he's a leader, and somehow inside that giant human being has always been a pretty good-sized teddy bear too. Unfortunately, football occasionally reminds us how quickly things can change. Another player rolled into the back of Clark's knee, putting him in a situation he never expected to be facing during his senior year. I hate that for him. I hate it for Mom and Dad too. Senior year is supposed to be the payoff for all those years of youth football, junior high, freshman ball, JV, varsity, summer workouts, team dinners and everything else a family invests just to get a kid to these final Friday nights. But here's what I know about Clark Anderson. Whatever happens from here, #77 isn't going to stop leading this football team. That's not Clark. In true Clark fashion, I expect him to be one of the lights helping lead these boys through whatever comes next. And don't mistake this for the ending of Clark's story, because it isn't. Clark has a road to recover, and I'm sure there will be days that road feels longer than he'd like. But you can bet your Tiger Tail that I expect to see #77 playing on a Saturday soon. When that day comes, I hope he remembers all of us back here who absolutely loved watching him live it up on Friday nights. The big runs, the blocks, the laughs, the leadership and everything else that made Clark, well, Clark. We're not writing the ending for #77. We're just turning the page. Thinking about Clark always takes me back to his first year on varsity and one of those traditions that probably makes absolutely no sense to anybody outside a football team. New varsity players eventually end up in a swimming pool. Nobody knows exactly what crime they've committed. Apparently the charge is simply "being new," and the sentence is immediate immersion. Usually it happens around a Thursday team dinner. The veterans identify the newcomer, the newcomer identifies the nearest body of water, negotiations break down and nature takes its course. Some kids fight until the bitter end. Others apparently understand the judicial system and just strip down to their tighty-whities and walk voluntarily toward the pool. "Gentlemen, I understand the charges against me. Let's get this over with." Clark's first year, my son Gage decided he was going to help initiate him. For perspective, Gage weighed about 165 pounds. Clark was a freshman, but Clark was not what scientists would generally classify as a normal-sized freshman. Gage went for it anyway. I'll give my boy credit, he held his own. Sort of. There was wrestling, bruising, complaining and probably a point where Gage reconsidered every decision that had led him to this moment. Clark, meanwhile, mostly just smiled. Big old teddy bear. They eventually got him into the pool, but reinforcements were required. Apparently one Gage was insufficient for the task. That's Clark Anderson, and that's one of those memories I'll carry long after we've forgotten the score of some football game. We're pulling for you, big man. Keep leading. The show continues and so does the "Sullivan Shuffle". Somebody apparently dug around in the Glen Rose playbook and found the section labeled the "Sullivan Switcheroo". We've become pretty accustomed to a little handoff trickery over the years, and now we've got brothers involved. One Sullivan, another Sullivan, football disappears, half the stadium points left, the other half points right, some poor defender begins questioning his life choices, and somewhere in the confusion a Sullivan has the football. Now we've got another problem. Which brother gets it next time? That's the beauty of showing it. The defense has to respect it, and when brothers are involved, I'm not entirely convinced even Mom knows which one has the ball. Riot Sullivan gave us one of my favorite moments of the night. China Spring had taken the momentum, and Glen Rose needed an answer. Riot took the kickoff and started running, and 90 yards later he was standing in the end zone, the game was tied and the Glen Rose side had completely lost its mind. If you happened to look down the sideline during that return, though, there was another sight I loved. Coach Gibson was running with him. Obviously not ON the field, we're not looking for an additional flag here, we've had enough excitement. But down that sideline Gibson went, watching Riot trek 90 yards to the house and looking like he was prepared to provide a lead block somewhere around the 20 if necessary. I loved it because that moment showed something bigger than a kickoff return. These coaches love these boys. You can see it, you can hear it, and you could certainly see it in Coach Gibson running down that sideline with Riot. The love these men have for the game is undeniable, but the love they have for our boys is even bigger. It's undeniable, uncontested, unmatched and without condition. Coaching high school football isn't showing up at 6:30 Friday night, putting on a headset and deciding whether to run left or right. It's early mornings, late nights, film, meetings, practices, summer workouts, phone calls, planning and replanning. It's winning Friday night and being back at work trying to figure out what went wrong. It's losing Friday night and lying awake trying to figure out how to make sure a bunch of teenage boys understand that one game doesn't define them. Somewhere along the way, these men start worrying about kids who aren't their own as if somehow they are. And somewhere behind nearly every one of those coaches is a family making that possible. A coach's wife doesn't exactly live the normal Friday-night-wife schedule. Football changes dinners, weekends, vacations, bedtimes, family plans and probably a few anniversaries somebody suddenly remembers around 4:37 in the afternoon. Their children don't get much say in the matter either. Congratulations, kid, you were born. Here's your bottle, here's your blanket, here's your Glen Rose Tiger shirt. Football starts Friday. Those kids grow up around field houses, practices, stadium lights, team dinners and conversations at the kitchen table about third-and-seven. They don't choose football. Football is basically listed as a dependent on their birth certificate. So thank you, coaches, and thank you to the wives and families who share them with our boys. We see the product on Friday night. We don't always see the sacrifice that happens Monday through Thursday. It matters, and it is appreciated. Now, before we leave China Spring, I feel obligated to address what apparently became one of the great educational moments of Homecoming week. Apparently it's China Spring, not China Springs. I know this now because the literates of the world made absolutely certain we were all properly educated. Did I know? Heck no, which is particularly embarrassing considering I spent a good chunk of the early 2000s working in China Spring(s) and even helped build their school. Twenty-something years later I find out I've apparently been adding an unauthorized "S" the entire time. My apologies. The spelling bee contestants really came out in full force after one particularly creative junior high Tiger showed up at the Homecoming Parade with Cougars on his sign, and I don't mean the ferocious Puma concolor. Mr. Blanton, you're a funny man. The sign was funny, the kids thought it was funny, most of the adults thought it was funny, and kudos to the China Spring moms who supported him and understood exactly what it was, a junior high boy having some fun at a Homecoming Parade. Of course, leave it to Glen Rose to find somebody offended by it. I could really care less either way. I raised four boys. We've had an ungodly number of kids come through our house over the years, birthday parties, sleepovers, team dinners, Halloween, Christmas, and we even hosted 2020 prom in our backyard when the world temporarily lost its mind. I've heard it all. I've heard conversations between 12-year-old boys that would make you question the future of humanity, and I've heard 18-year-olds discuss things the Boomers apparently didn't discover until somewhere around their midlife crisis. I'm probably not going to clutch my pearls over a funny football sign. According to the extremely scientific polling organization headquartered entirely inside my own head, approximately 99.8% of the population thought it was hilarious. Carry on, Mr. Blanton. I do want to say something else about China Spring, though. A+ for sportsmanship and courtesy. From their football team to their fans, I didn't hear the negativity. This was a close, emotional football game. China Spring fought, answered and kept coming. They scored 39 points and had every opportunity to get frustrated in a game that included six Glen Rose takeaways. From what I experienced, they handled themselves extremely well. China Spring, you're great people. I appreciate that. Now let's talk about T-shirts, because apparently after all these years we've entered the performance-review portion of my volunteer career. For years we've shot shirts out of the cannon, thrown them into crowds, handed them to little kids and tried our best to make Friday nights a little more exciting. Our shirt-throwing arms have been tested from stadiums out west like ACU, Shotwell and the Mustang Bowl, all the way to the flashy stages of Prosper and The Star in Frisco. We've pushed carts through pouring rain and freezing cold, sweated through nights so hot and humid that the shirts were probably getting a free pre-wash before they ever reached the stands, and hauled equipment through more stadium gates than I care to count. We've dealt with exceptionally courteous hosts who made us feel right at home, and we've encountered a few who apparently believed visiting Tigers should enter through customs, present two forms of identification and declare all cotton goods before proceeding to the field. We've been welcomed, questioned, rained on, frozen and cooked. We've pushed carts uphill, downhill, across tracks, around stadiums and through mud. We've shot shirts, thrown shirts, handed shirts to littles and probably accidentally given shirts to people who already owned the exact same shirt. Trust me, we aren't rookies. And I still love it. Seeing some little kid light up because you handed him a Glen Rose shirt is still one of my favorite things. But everything has its ugly side, and Friday night I was asked whether "I had a problem" with a boy because apparently, he hadn't received a shirt. Cheese and Rice, madam. I've given my heart and soul to these kids for years. Why in the world would I have a problem with yours? Look around. There are hundreds of people. Kids in front of me, kids behind you, kiddos, kiddos everywhere. Adults reaching, little ones jumping, people yelling and approximately 47 children simultaneously informing me they haven't gotten one. I'm trying my hardest to be random. I'll tell you a secret, though. I'm probably MORE likely to give a shirt to the quiet kid standing there looking like a hungry little orphan than I am the kid two inches from my face screaming, "GIVE ME ONE!" That's just how I'm wired. I'm not a fan of entitlement. It's a free T-shirt. There isn't an application process. Nobody's report card is involved. I don't have a spreadsheet, there is no T-shirt draft combine, and despite what some may believe, I do not have a naughty-and-nice list tucked inside the cannon. Sometimes you get one. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes the kid beside you gets one and you congratulate him instead of asking to speak with management. That's probably not a terrible little life lesson either. Carry on. And now, Robinson. If Friday night against China Spring was the blood-pressure test, somebody might want to have the paddles charged for this one. The Rockets are 3-1, just like us, and they can score. A lot. They've put up 38, 55 and 52 during their current three-game winning streak. They scored 35 in their only loss, and that loss came by a single point. So no, I don't think Robinson is coming to Glen Rose Friday night to admire the tunnel. They've got athletes. They've got weapons. They've got a senior quarterback in Brice McCurdy who is coming off a big performance against Franklin, and they've demonstrated repeatedly that they are perfectly comfortable getting into a shootout. Wonderful. Exactly what my cardiologist ordered. Are we ready? I don't know. That's why they play the game. But I know we're closer than we were four weeks ago, and that's the part that excites me. Grandview showed us something. Gatesville taught us something. Godley showed us we could suffocate an offense. China Spring showed us we could survive chaos. Now Robinson gets to ask the next question. Are these pieces coming together fast enough? Can Garza and Big Mike help control that front? Can Burch, Willey, Diego, Ty, Cash and the rest keep finding the football? Can Cross, Luke and the Sullivans keep giving defenses more things to think about? Can Judd take another step? Can eleven Tigers do eleven jobs and trust the guy standing beside them? We'll find out Friday. That's the fun part, because we're four games into this thing and I don't think we've seen the finished product. Not even close. We're watching kids find their groove, coaches make adjustments, roles become clearer and confidence grow. That's progress. Keep learning, keep adjusting, keep trusting, keep doing your job. And when Friday night comes, Find A Way.