ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 30, 1996 TAG: 9608300023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
TYPE: COMMENTARY
SOURCE: RAY COX
A dear old friend is ailing.
Chicken soup won't do any good.
Cough syrup is ineffective.
The illness has been a lingering one. Too bad the patient may not be lingering much longer.
Maybe there's nothing you can do, nothing anybody can do. Nevertheless, open your heart and open your wallet.
Buy a ticket to a football game.
Take your pick. There's a pile of them to attend because tonight is opening night for high school football all across the land.
For some of us, Christmas is wonderful and the first day of summer vacation sublime, but there is nothing like the start of football season.
May it ever be so.
Maybe not.
Not to be so gloomy on such an otherwise glorious day, but let us hope that there yet may be goal line stands, tight spirals and single wings.
The way it looks from one perch, though, football may be operating on a wing and a prayer.
"We're sitting on a dying sport,'' one well-known local high school coach said as practice was starting this month.
He said that he hoped he was wrong. In that sentiment, he isn't alone.
But the signs are ominous.
Across the local sporting landscape, high school roster numbers are down just about everywhere. They've been down for years. The exceptions in Timesland are where you'd expect: Pulaski County, Giles, Salem, Blacksburg, maybe a couple of others.
Football hangs on bravely in Radford, at William Fleming, at Patrick Henry, but it is played before ever diminishing audiences.
The NFL is still huge. The crowds haven't gone anywhere. The Dallas Cowboys sell zillions of dollars worth of star-studded shirts, jackets, caps and bath towels. There won't be enough seats for Virginia Tech's annual bloodletting with Virginia. One-hundred thousand souls will breathe bourbon fumes and watch Tennessee and Alabama hammer on each other. One day we may see pro ball in permanent outposts such as Mexico City, Berlin and Tokyo.
"But if high school football dies, where do you think the colleges and pros are going to be?'' one high school coach wondered recently.
High school ball isn't dead yet. Far from it. Maybe way far. The undertaker, however, is putting air in the tires of the hearse.
What's the problem with this grand game?
Theories abound. Numerous leisure time choices face young people. Football practice shortens summer too much. Every kid has to have a job and a car and there isn't any gas money in hitting a blocking sled. Kids just don't have the gumption they used to. Their mommies don't want them to get hurt.
There are as many theories as there are empty seats and lockers.
There are no answers here.
Maybe these things go in cycles. Maybe down two touchdowns with 10 minutes to go and the enemy driving, football is about make a stop and stage a remarkable comeback.
Let's hope so.
Because if football dies, then part of America dies.
And that would break my heart.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB