Last night Cole had his first game under the Friday Night Lights. Football is not big here in Germany, soccer, oh yes, but football? That’s a whole other story.
The most important part of the story is that only “our” high schools have teams. That means a lot of travel time for our teams as they bus throughout Europe for their games. It also means a lot of long roadtrips for the proud parents (that’s me! And Dave!).
Yesterday we drove 4 hours (it’s 2 1/2 hours, but, well, Friday afternoon on the autobahn is not at unlimited, breakneck speeds) to get up to K-town and cheer Cole and the Panthers on for their first game of the season.
It has been an unusually cold summer here, and Fall is in full swing. The boys were warm, even hot during play, but up in the stands the cold, wet, rain chilled me down to my bones. Shhhhh! Don’t tell Cole his mom may be getting just a little old.
Despite the cold, despite the rain, a night game is exciting! Our boys were slow to warm up. The K-town team has, *gasp*, astroturf! At home our boys play on real grass. Maybe that is why they were slow to start? The first quarter left our hearts in our throats and my voice hoarse. It was instant bond for me, Dave and the other proud parents rooting for our team. There, in the middle of Germany, we found a little bit of small town Americana.
An away game, a 3-hours away, away game means a smaller crowd on the “guest” side. We more than made up for the smaller audience by whooping & cheering & encouraging our team. Soon enough those boys found their footing on the slick, fast astroturf and rallied for a resounding win. Final score? 41 – 20. Go Panthers!
This is Cole’s first year playing football, despite being a junior (Football is a Way of Life), but he is on the Varsity team, albeit second string. Second string is hard for our puppy. He had to wait till the 4th quarter to finally get on the field and play.
And he played. He played hard. He played fast. He played strong. Can you just see my heart bursting with pride over here?
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