EAS Volunteer Stuff and a Pretty Neat Event [Entered 11/10]

Okay, Friday I felt better, but still a little logy from time to time. No running, but lots of fluid intake, eating, and general pampering trying to bring me back up to speed. Still 4 pounds off Monday's morning weigh-in, but I have regained some of my lost self.

Friday, I visited RunTex to grab some coolers from Gilbert so that I could populate the hydration stations for the handful of us going long on Saturday for White Rock. I yacked with a bunch of my fellow Gazelle volunteers there, and scored my volunteer shirts. It should be fun and interesting to be volunteering on Sunday, especially after having seen so much of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into putting on one of these races. It's pretty amazing what all goes into the seemingly simple act of putting on a road race.

Friday night was the last football game for Anderson High School, so we went to see Jake perform with the marching band for the last time this year down at the Burger Stadium. Anderson was playing Akins, which has had a tough year, so we expected a win for our team. The game was very tight, though, 14-7 at halftime after Anderson went for it at the Akins 2 yard line with time running out at the half. They failed to convert, and trailed at the half. The band played great at the half, including a snappy version of Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon," which is a great tune. Anyway, the second half was a back-and-forth affair, and Anderson kept messing up extra points, with two of them blocked, and one missed. In fact, one of the blocked PATs was returned for a 2-point score by Akins. Things looked grim, but Anderson scratched and clawed, and managed to tie up the game very late in the fourth quarter. Akins had a tiny bit of time, though, and came down the field, leaving themselves an opportunity for a game-winning 50 yard field goal. Their coach let the clock run down to 3 seconds so that Anderson wouldn't get a chance to do anything after the kick, and called time out.

Okay, by now, parents in the stands were conferring with each other to see if we play overtime in high school in Texas (we do). We were pretty sure the guy couldn't kick a 50 yarder, so the mood was watchful, but not super nervous. The ball was snapped, the kick was partially blocked, and a lineman type picked up the ball around the 15 yard line. We started yelling that they could return the ball, which the guy knew, of course. He looked around and tossed the ball to Anderson's best player, a senior named R.P. (can't make this stuff up), and somehow, R.P. managed to weave his way through the entire Akins team, 85 yards, for the winning touchdown on the final play of his final game as an Anderson football player. It was really electrifying...honestly!

The coolest thing was right after, though. You could sense all the crowd yelling but holding their breath at the same time (impossible, but stay with me), willing R.P. through the collected players, and then in a microsecond, someone decided to let their excitement bubble over, and the psychological barrier was broken, and 100's of students swarmed the field, running down to pile on the football players and R.P., who was no doubt at the bottom of a heavy pile of humanity. The pure spontaneity of the swarm was a beautiful thing to see, and to their credit, the police on site didn't go nuts, and let the celebration of the freak play go on without too much interference. It was damned cool to see.

So, after a while, and after the poor Akins guys picked themselves up off the field where they had fallen during the runback, and after the post-game handshakes, the football team was joined by all those students on the field for the singing of the school song at the end of the game. It was one of the best things I've seen in a while.

And, for R.P., this was perhaps the highlight of his entire life. Maybe not, but geez...to win the game on such a spectacular play on the last play of your high school football career? I'm not sure how it gets better than that. Wow.