High School Football...in Afghanistan

We berate technology when it stops working and subsequently our relatively convenient lives become a little harder. Tonight, though, technology by way of the internet allowed me to experience a little of my son's high school football game. I woke early to listen to the Friday night matchup via streaming audio pumped out by the local radio station where he lives.

The broadcast was first-rate. The commentators were fantastic, obviously veterans of the local high school sports scene. They kept the analysis lively with personal stories and colorful anecdotes about the boys on the field and talked here and there about past heroes. The interspersed commercials advertising small-town restaurants, small-engine repair shops, and local banks reminded me of my youth growing up in Kentucky.

I closed my eyes and I was transported to a high school football field on a hot, muggy Friday night in Central Kentucky. I chewed my nails and imagined the folksy pageantry of the first game of the season versus a neighboring county rival. Through my headphones, I could faintly hear the rhythmic chants of the cheerleaders and the occasional yell of an angry father or a screeching complaint of a mother. I might as well have been sitting right next to them. I noted the boys my son is friends with, some of whom I've met, others I know only through their funny Facebook status updates and the pictures they post. Man, they get bigger every year!

Most of all, though, I thought about my son—a sophomore starting his first varsity football game. I wondered how nervous and excited he must have been despite his perpetually calm outward demeanor. I wondered if he realized I was there in the stands as proud as any of the other parents watching. Thank God for high school football. Thank Him even more for the internet to hear a game all the way in Afghanistan.