It is time to admit the drums and brass carried from down the street weren’t lying, that the crackle-and-grunt rhythm of the season punctuated by the screaming cicada is not your imagination. A goddess named Victory will soon bring a mighty roar of exhortation to our weekends; all shall pledge their fealty.
Giants whose first lick knocks the young hope of Texas out of the game: they all begin as schoolboys amid buzzing creeks and clicking cotton. Corn-fed kids scrapping over yards of dirt have dreams of destiny: to be stuffed with homework and protein at training-tables, to stand with legends, to raise a trophy.
Whistles and horns organize the boys. Some are burned black from work all summer in fields of endless soybeans. Nothing builds character like an August two-a-day; the wind-sprint after five hours of practice makes a young man tougher than he conceived.
Some declare it a crime against nature and reason, but in truth they are jealous. Denounced as a kind of violent committee meeting, divided into two rival denominations and many lesser-known, this postmodern pagan ritual is our War Dance, a song of blood and sweat and tears.
