Are you ready for some football? Because I am

I love football.

Every Friday night I venture the Columbia Basin to cover high school football games and I get a chill down my spine.

As I stand on the sidelines, camera in hand, I can’t help but remember when I stood on the sidelines as a high school player.

Walking the sidelines as a reporter during high school football games affords me the opportunity to never fully let go of the game I loved to play.

I remember the long, hot summer days of daily doubles.

I remember walking the halls of my high school, wearing my jersey on Friday.

I remember the sounds of the stadium filling above as my teammates and I put our pads on in the locker room below the stands.

Football provides me with an opportunity, if only for a short time, to forget the troubles of adulthood.

When the game comes to an end and the buzzer sounds on the stadium scoreboard, I make my way to my truck. I hop in the driver’s seat and make my way home.

With ever tire rotation and every passing mile, I think of the good times and the bad, I have had playing and watching football.

I remember how I felt when the buzzer sounded after my final high school football game. I remember standing in the middle of the field, staring at the scoreboard after falling 27-25 to Tumwater in the state playoffs. 

I remember watching Notre Dame throttle the Nevada Wolfpack 35-0 to start the 2009 football season only to have Charlie Weis and the Irish rip my heart out the following week with a loss to Michigan.

I remember watching replays of the 2008 Apple Cup.

While Washington and Washington State entered the game that November afternoon in Pullman, with only one win between them, the schools provided fans with a game for the ages.

It didn’t matter whether both teams entered the annual rivalry playing for a shot at the national championship or playing for pride.

Sadly, both teams entered the 2008 game near the bottom of Division I football, but we didn’t care. Fans adorned themselves in crimson and grey, purple and gold to represent their schools and their team.

No matter what is happening in our team’s present, we can always relive the past.

With every Seahawks loss, we can look back and remember Seattle’s run to Super Bowl XL.

Football provides a lasting release from reality. 

Football is America’s game.

Football is our game. For three consecutive days during the fall and early winter months, people can engross themselves in a sport that provides a release from the mundane.

For three nights each week, people can engross themselves in a sport that unites communities, brings together strangers and helps us forget, if only for a few hours.

I love football.

Derrick Pacheco is the Columbia Basin Herald sports editor. He is always eager to commiserate with fans of losing teams and share in the thrill of victory. The man is nuts about the sport.