Fish fry scrimmage signals end of summer

The only drawback to the start of another high school football season is that it signals the beginning of the end of another glorious summer.

Summers are special.

Summers are a break from the norm. A break from school, from college, maybe a week or two from work.

Songs are written about summer and summer activities. Surfin' songs. Fishin' songs. Cheeseburger in Paradise songs.

But as the Gregorian calendar indicates late August, with another summer just a few weeks from being in our rear-view mirror, that can only mean one thing. Football is about to encroach on baseball for the rites of autumn as the new national pastime.

On Friday evening (Aug. 23), that simple observation came as no grand surprise to the hundreds of high school football fans gathered at John Wayne Richards Memorial Field for a preseason scrimmage that means nothing for either team in the coming season's overall standings.

As usual, the Hillsboro Indians and the Paint Valley Bearcats played a relatively sportsmanlike contest as a late-summer tuneup to the regular season. And, as usual, the concession stand lines were long, as the smell of fried fish wafted through the stadium air.

Someone said that more people showed up for the fish fry than for the football.

I don't know. I'm a fan of both.

Maybe an hour before the game, which I attended with two of my three (now adult) children, I walked up to the Bruce Ford Memorial Press Box in order to distribute a few complimentary copies of HCP sports editor Stephen Forsha's 2013 edition of First and Ten, our annual high school football preview.

Two familiar faces were seated at opposite ends of the announcer's booth: Dave Hilliard, to the left (west), was announcing the players and cheerleaders during pre-game ceremonies.

To the right, was Hillsboro City Schools Superintendent Rick Earley.

As always, Rick and I exchanged a joke or two and went about our respective business. His, to lead a school district. Mine, to avoid such seriousness.

A few minutes later, Rick walked down to the field. Several people greeted the superintendent, and former principal, and former athletics director, and former teacher, and former baseball coach, and former football coach and former basketball coach.

Rick shook hands with Steve Roush. Rick called him Stephen, as most of us did back in the early 1990s, when young Mr. Roush played baseball for Coach Earley's Indians.

I jokingly asked Rick why he had canceled homecoming prior to the first football game. (He hadn't. And we both knew that.) Such is the life of modern-day school officials who must not only answer dubious calls from dubious media types, but also must endure even more dubious nonsense from the ridiculous environment known as social media.

I also wondered what Rick was thinking, sitting alone in the press box, gazing over Richards Field for what will be one of his last times as an HHS official. I think I know.

And I hope the Hillsboro City Schools community knows how much Rick Earley has devoted to the school system and its students for the last quarter century.

A moment or two later, the 2013 Hillsboro Indians, coached by Matt Hodge, made their way onto the field. As the players passed by, my 18-year-old son noticed that No. 34 was, in his words, "a girl."

I asked Mr. Hilliard about this curious circumstance. Indeed, No. 34 was (is) a girl. Ashley Purtee (my apologies for any incorrect spellings) was suited up for the 2013 Hillsboro Indians football team.

That's a rarity.

"She's a kicker," Mr. Hilliard said.

Good, I thought. They could probably use a kicker.

Then, as the parent of two daughters, I reconsidered. What if she gets hurt?

I hope she doesn't.

I also hope Coach Hodge has a good first season with the Indians.

We all know fans can be fickle as a prom queen, but let's give the new coach a chance.

After all, Hillsboro is playing in a most competitive South Central Ohio League. In fact, I'm not sure the league has ever been any stronger than it is today.

Good luck to Hillsboro, McClain, Paint Valley and the upstart Fayetteville Rockets in the 2013 high school football season. We'll be seeing all of you in the next 10 weeks.

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Notes/Asides

I've always been a fan of the 1972 Miami Dolphins who were Super Bowl champions and completed a perfect 17-0 season.

I also admired players like center Jim Langer, guard Bob Kuechenberg and defensive tackle Manny Fernandez. I still do. Maybe even more so.

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Two Major League Baseball players are members of the 4,000-hit club.

Ichiro Suzuki is not one of them.

There's little doubt that Ichiro will enter the Baseball Hall of Fame before one Peter Edward Rose. (Such things are, on occasion, as subjective as naming a Homecoming queen or king.)

But for anyone who knows baseball, the current 4,000-hit club is reserved for Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. That's it. No mas.

Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.