The Season starts perfectly at 6:30 a.m. when two teenaged boys indulge their mom and pause for a picture before leaving for school. It’s gameday, and football players get to wear their jerseys. They hate that kind of thing I’m pretty sure but they do it for me because they know it will make me happy. The picture is taken and posted on my Facebook page as soon as I get to work that day.
But before work, I attend 7:20 Mass at SLUH in what will become a weekly ritual for the team. The players, all sporting the brand new white jersey they’ll wear that evening, attend and sit with their parents or teammates. It’s a comforting 
start, and I say a prayer for the players’ safety, a prayer that will come in handy later. After Mass, I make my way through Forest Park to my office at Washington University. Somehow, I have to work until 3:45.
SLUH Stadium, 4 p.m.
Why didn’t I bring the sunscreen? The Nexturf field at SLUH Stadium runs north and south, which means bleachers face west which means a late summer sun is bearing down on the field and its spectators.
A sea of umbrellas among the 300-plus fans in the stands. “We never had this many people watching freshman football when I played at Vianney,” says Dave Larson, whose son Arthur is suited on the sideline.
It’s a hot, hot afternoon but on the field it’s even hotter, especially for the MICDS football team that barely has enough players to field both an offense and a defense. About 10 extra players are on the opposing sideline at any given time, a sharp contrast to the crowded SLUH sideline.
Jack wears No. 15, and I scan the uniforms looking for his number. There are two No. 15s – it’s freshman football, so for some reason that’s OK – and the other No. 15 is bouncing all over the place.
But I spot him among the players, his helmet on and ready to go. That’s where he’ll stay on this afternoon. SLUH wins 27-6, and a few subs get in. “Text me if he gets in,” I tell my husband Tom heading to the car to get to the varsity game on time. “And text me the final score.” I only get the one text. No. 15 stood on the sideline for the first game, learning the lesson that playing time must be earned. No free passes in football.
But The Season starts with a win for the freshman. A good sign.
Who named the road Fee Fee?
It’s Friday night and traffic heading west on I-64 is uncharacteristically moving. I’m parking at Parkway North High School, on Fee Fee Rd. in north St. Louis County, next to tailgaters in “enemy” territory. I arrive in plenty of time for the kickoff, getting directed to the parent section in the far end of the bleachers. There’s room on the top row next to the grandmother of SLUH senior cornerback Darion Baker, a quiet, dignified woman named Lynn with a warm smile. Next to her is Darion’s mom, Tootie, a lively, animated woman with an infectious enthusiasm. As the game goes on, Tootie is going to get more lively and more animated. She will have good reason.
As the game begins, sitting on the other side of me is DeDe Pitts, whose son Andrew is one of the team’s best athletes. He played freshman year, and made varsity as a sophomore. As a junior, he decided to concentrate on baseball year-round but now he’s back and DeDe seems as nervous as I am. Wow, I think. Her son’s one of the best players out there and she’s jumpy too. I like her. As the game begins, my nails are gone and my cuticles are on life support anticipating the kickoff.
The SLUH offense receives the kickoff and starts hot. Quarterback Trevor McDonagh, a Division I prospect blessed with a cannon for an arm and a playbook for a brain, drives the team downfield completing passes to a trio of Division I prospect receivers, Stefan Sansone, Mitch Klug and Paul Simon.
The momentum comes to a grinding halt when McDonagh throws an interception in the end zone and Parkway North runs it back 102 yards for a touchdown. This is going to be a barn-burner.
SLUH would play catch-up the remainder of the game. Tom and Jack get there by the beginning of the second quarter, and he and Tootie share one-liners as the score goes back and forth and the announcer becomes an annoyingly biased in favor of the home team. It is, afterall, high school football. “Fourth and long?” Tootie says. “It’s more like fourth and the day-after-tomorrow.”
SLUH finally evens the score at 35 with less than 3 minutes in the game when McDonagh hits Simon in the end zone and the Jr. Bills successfully execute the two-point conversion. The parent section erupts, the students on the hill behind the SLUH bench go crazy and there is tremendous joy. The game is not over.
The Vikings get the ball last and make the most of their opportunity, kicking a game-winning field goal with no time on the clock. Parkway North 38-SLUH 35. It’s a heartbreaker, and a tough lesson. On two separate occasions, the Jr. Bills had first and goal inside the 5-yard line and failed to get in the endzone, making a field goal the first time and missing the second.
Heartbreaking but not backbreaking. You get the feeling these games are going to be exciting, every one of them. And you get the feeling these young men learned something about themselves.
But that’s not all. The Season started with a loss, but I never though it would start with The Hit.
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