Get out and take in a high school football game

By Stephen Hlawaty
Outdoors Columnist

I love October. It's an authoritative month. No transitional periods during these 31 days. When October hits, you know it. You know it by the leaves on the ground, the frost on your windshield, the chill in the air and the start of a new season. Football season.

Like October, the game of football is authoritative. It's a game with a decisively us-and-them mentality marked by winners and losers, offense and defense, home and away. A beautiful balancing act of polar opposites.

So if you're of the mind of such Zen-like sensibilities, you're probably like me and enjoy watching a good football game. But making it down to Denver to watch the Broncos battle it out on the gridiron isn't always feasible. So what to do? The answer: Catch a local high school football game.

My son Ethan and I recently watched the Poudre Impalas take on the Arapahoe Warriors from Denver. In truth, Ethan was more captivated by the tall, fuzzy, brown impala running up and down the sidelines and goofing with the cheerleaders than he was with the players and action on the field. In fact, now whenever we watch some televised football game, he invariably looks for the impala along the sidelines. For Ethan, it isn't football without an impala. I wonder if Matt Baumann, (a.k.a. the Poudre High School impala), knows the kind of celebrity status he's achieved, at least in the eyes of my 3-year-old?

It's that kind of celebrity that we celebrate in watching a high school football game. It's a chance for some to recall their glory days: the thrills of victories and the agonies of defeat. These are memorable days that, although long since passed, still find a place in our present. As such, can our glory days of high school really ever be gone?

No. Sitting on the aluminum bleaches of French Field, the field at Rocky Mountain High School where all Fort Collins' high school home games are played, I recalled some of my own high school athletic accomplishments. While never part of an organized football team, I did experience the thrill of winning a high school baseball world series - city champs, 1985 - and the agony of striking out, for the third out, with bases loaded, to smash our team's chances of moving forward in the post-season.

"Where's the impala?" was the question posed by my son that ended my glory-day musings. It was just as well, too. Poudre had just scored a touchdown to take the lead over Arapahoe. Needless to say, proud mothers and fathers stood up from behind their camcorders and zoom-lensed cameras; other spectators cheered and clapped, and the band played on.

Yes, the band. No high school football game story would be complete without mentioning the band. With its cymbals crashing, horns blaring, flutes piping, drums pounding, the Poudre High School band was every bit a part of the game as the players ... and the impala. Such variety and precision of action - touchdown scored, family and friends standing, cheering, band playing - add to the charm and nostalgia of the experience. The kind of experience that can only be lived from the edge of a cold, hard, aluminum bleacher seat of a high school football game.

What's great about these games is that they are inexpensive and open to the public. For a schedule of the high school football games played at French Field, call or visit the web sites of Poudre, Rocky Mountain, Fort Collins or Fossil Ridge High Schools. For adults, the entrance fee is $5, while students who have their IDs can enter for $4. Children 5 and under enter for free.

When visiting French Field for the first time, it may help to know that the home crowd typically sits on the west bleachers, while the away crowd sits on the east bleachers. There's parking both on the west and east sides of Rocky Mountain High School. As you might expect with any sporting event, there are concession stands that sell nonalcoholic beverages and other food items.

So welcome to high school football. With players on the field, frost on the bleachers, bands in the stands and opening kickoffs, it's all in the game.