I knew it wouldn’t take long for one of my few readers to broadcast their desire for me to write again. I’ve become a sort of local celebrity amongst my half dozen readers. I may have to set up an autograph signing, but I haven’t found a room small enough to hold all of us without somebody asking where everybody else is. The past couple of weeks I’ve been silent. Since the beatdown against Brock, we’ve absolutely dominated, and one of my favorite things has been watching some of those younger boys finally get their chance. Down at the tunnel, you get a little insight into how bad they want it. They’ve spent a whole season taking their reps, standing on the sideline, and waiting to hear somebody call their number. Let me tell ya, those boys were ready to eat. And if you want to see what those snaps mean, look for their parents in the stands when they realize who just went in. With cooler weather comes more fog and more smoke from my cannons. It’s my favorite time of year for all my antics and contraptions. I’ve been doing this long enough to remember an old, dilapidated Tiger head and a leaky tunnel full of boys who are now marrying their sweethearts and having children of their own. I can still picture some of them coming out of that thing in shoulder pads. Now some of them are fixing to be the dads in the stands. I’ve been to stadium after stadium, met some mighty good people, and argued with a few who probably remember me less fondly. Heck, I got chewed out one playoff game for unknowingly blowing the horn right in front of the opposing band. I truly felt bad. One poor girl couldn’t stop crying, and one lady made sure I understood exactly how she felt about me. I just push a button. I don’t stand there staring at the horns, willing them to blow from a distance. The referee puts both arms up, the Tigers score, and we have ourselves a little noise. Maybe next year I’ll put up 50 yards of caution tape and a sign that says, “WARNING: TIGER TOUCHDOWNS MAY OCCUR.” And while we’re talking about who pushes the button, let me clear up a little Friday night procedure. For generations in Glen Rose, dads have run the tunnel. The booster club inherited the responsibility of funding the equipment, and I’m grateful it has helped keep the thing going. The dads have carried on running it. A check can buy a blower. When that blower quits ten minutes before kickoff, somebody’s dad is still the one on his knees trying to figure out why. There’s a particular kind of dad who enjoys this mess. He’ll grab a piece of equipment in August, burn his fingertips, and grab it again five minutes later because it still needs moving. He’ll help roll up a nasty, wet vinyl Tiger while everybody else is watching halftime. He can diagnose what quit, fix what he can, and get there early the next week to see if the fix held. He’s happy to do it without anybody in the stands knowing his name. He loves those kids, including the ones who’ve never ridden home in his truck. Jessica and I have been on the fence this year about how much longer we’ll do it. We’ve got one more little man to graduate, and I hope with everything in me that he gets to play his senior year. He’s never been the biggest guy out there, but he loves the game. When it was taken away from him, he lost something he’d looked forward to his whole life. Watching your son hurt physically is hard enough. Watching him work through what it did to him on the inside is a whole different kind of helpless. If you know us, you know where we stand. I’d stand up for your child, too. This past year cost us trust and friendships, and there were nights I wondered what all those thousands of hours Jessica and I had poured into this district had amounted to. I can tell you that’s a hard thing to admit after spending so many years being the guy who’d come running when somebody needed something done. Then you folks started doing little things that meant more to us than you probably knew. You stopped to thank us. You told us how excited your kids got when they caught a shirt. You made us feel like you were glad we were still down there. After stepping back from running the booster club, Jessica and I finally had a little time to look up into the stands. I’d forgotten how much you can see when you aren’t trying to be in six places at once. You see a dad stand up before the ball’s even snapped because his boy just checked in. You see a senior mom watching a little longer after the game, even after the people around her have started gathering their stuff. I’ve had some time to think about what all those hours amounted to, and I can tell you it was worth it. The articles where I said what I thought, sometimes a little louder than I needed to. The nights I went through rosters and worked on bios for each kid, because the boy who gets three snaps all season has people who’d love to read about him, too. The game days I took a little extra time to make sure Hudl was streaming so a grandma or grandpa who couldn’t make it to the stadium or arena could still watch their boy play. Were there easier ways to do some of it? I’m sure there were. I’ve just never figured out why getting it done quicker was supposed to be the best part. I liked having a reason to learn a little more about the boys whose names I’d been typing. I liked knowing that somewhere a granddad could sit in his recliner and see his grandson run out with the Tigers. There were plenty of nights I could’ve gone home earlier. Looking back, I’m glad I stayed. I think about the year I built those propane shakers. Some of you will remember those things. There were grown men up there shaking those cans like somebody had told them they could cancel their gym membership if they made it through four quarters. I put the beads in those cans, but those men are the ones who made them rumble. I can still hear it when I think about it. The cans sit pretty quiet these days. Some are tucked away somewhere, and even the ones that make it to the stands don’t get those beads rolling like they used to. I’ll admit it makes me a little sad. Maybe some kid will pick one up someday, give it a shake, and get the whole row going again. I’d get a kick out of hearing that from down at the tunnel. Give it a few more years and there’ll be folks in those stands who never heard them and couldn’t tell you where they came from. I reckon that’s how these things go. But I remember the men who made those cans rumble. I wonder how many things I love about Friday nights started with somebody who thought he could make the game a little more fun for the kids and went ahead and did it. And somewhere in all of that, I’ve had to ask myself whether it might be getting close to time for us to hand the tunnel over. Jessica probably wishes I’d asked that question about three contraptions ago. Between what I’ve spent out of my own pocket and the time I’ve put into building and fixing things, I’d put it somewhere around $15,000. I’ve always said, “You can always make more money.” Jessica’s heard me say that enough times to know I’ve probably already ordered the parts. If it’s in the cards and I believe it’s my time to find somebody, I reckon the tunnel will guide me. I’ll probably notice a dad hanging around at halftime, asking where the wet end goes and already reaching down to grab it. I hope he’ll love watching those boys come through it as much as I have. And I hope I’ll have enough sense to let him do things his own way when the time comes. Jessica may have to remind me of that last part. There’s a moment right before the boys run out when you can hear them thundering behind you and the crowd out in front. I’ve stood there with my own boys somewhere in that group, and I’ve stood there in years when every boy in that tunnel belonged to somebody else. I still get that same feeling in my chest. You spend enough Fridays down there and you start pulling for those boys like they’re your own. I reckon that’s the part I’ll miss most. Now the regular season’s over, and we’re week to week. I’ve been fortunate to be part of some great games over the years. I’m still a little disgusted with Iowa Park for ending our season two years in a row. Pleasant Grove ranks up there. We came so close in overtime. And Carthage learned exactly what Glen Rose was made of. As for Graham, let’s just say they earned their spot on my list somewhere before the final whistle. If you know, you know. Some of you are about to watch your senior play his last football game. You might go into it thinking you’ve got two or three more Fridays, and then all of a sudden you’re standing there waiting for him to come off the field. You’ve spent half the fourth quarter trying to think of something to say that’ll make him feel better. Then he comes walking toward you, helmet in his hand, and you realize you’re the one who needs to hear it. From a seasoned tunnel dad, a father of four football players, and a man with enough gray hair to account for most of those seasons, I’ve got two words of advice. SLOW DOWN. Watch him find his spot on the sideline. Watch what he does when a younger boy makes a play. When he comes off the field, take a second and look at him. Somewhere in that young man is the little boy you used to help get his pads on, and for one more Friday night you get to be there while he does something he loves. And if you see me down by the tunnel at halftime, taking a little longer than usual to roll up that old Tiger, just let me be. I might be taking my own advice.