Friday, 8/29/08 (b)

Matt saw J.T. only a few hours later up in the press box at the opening game of the Cougar football season. Coach Thorpe, the head CVHS football coach and one of the school's history teachers, had asked Matt if he wouldn't mind being backup videotape operator ... just in case the student assistant charged with the task didn't show. The video assistant did show, as a matter of fact he was there before Matt was, and had the camera set up and working well before kickoff.

The press box was old and cramped like many of the facilities at Clover Valley and given Matt really didn't need to be up there he exited the booth (after a friendly wave to J.T. at the opposite end) and sat down in the stands near a few of the teachers he recognized. Over the first week, he'd met probably half the teachers at the school and it was becoming obvious he was the youngest on the staff by at least five years. That was made further evident when he noticed he was the only one in the loose cluster of teachers who was there without a family. But everyone had been very nice so far, asking him in the hallways how his classes were going and providing encouragement. He'd even had a nice conversation before school yesterday with Sean Perlozzo in which he was treated to a 10 minute seminar on the newspaper business. Toward the end Perlozzo asked him how the cross-country team was going. Matt replied that it was so far, so good. Perlozzo asked him how much speed work they had done thus far and before Matt could answer the former coach assured him however much he was doing it was not enough.

Watching the students crowd around the field's fenced perimeter in swirling tight groups made Matt feel a little old which was a new sensation. The same faces didn't seem that young in the classroom or the school hallways, but out here someone felt out of place and Matt suspected it was him. In his brief tenure in the small town of Clover Valley he'd been keenly cognizant of all the differences between here and his home in suburban Coharie Creek. But for the first time, recognized something here that was exactly the same.
"The same swarms of moths fly around the stadium lights ... you have to strain to hear the field announcer ... 90 percent of the students are paying no attention to the game ... the other 10 percent are over there in the pep section and cheering like Cameron Crazies the entire game ... the band are exiting the bleachers for their halftime show at an absurdly early time (w/ 2:42 left in the first quarter) ... they'll stand on the track for most of the second quarter ... when you can hear the field announcer he's always correcting himself ... 'excuse me that was Carlson on that last tackle' ... the barbecue sandwiches still taste great and you can get a solid dinner for five bucks ... the same elementary school kids have their own Nerf game going in the field just past the end zone ... and the game always seems to be decided by halftime. (CVHS was trailing Willowsburg 20-6.)"

Coming back from the concession stand, Matt saw his two senior runners, Kory and Mark, in one of the dense packs of congregating students. They were too busy trying to impress their female friends to give him much more than a wary wave of acknowledgement, but he did talk briefly with Jake and Nick who were in a large group of friends. After he headed back to his seats and was some distance away, he could pick out Jake's voice saying, "Yeah, Coach Adamson's all right", which made him feel not quite as old as he had before halftime.