Friday Night Football

There's a short blurb in today's Republic about Gilbert High School's coach Jesse Parker:

It was late afternoon in August.

The temperature was nearly 110 degrees. The humidity high enough to make a rattlesnake sweat.

Gilbert High coach Jesse Parker was in his element, guiding his football players through drills, yelling encouragement and barking at mistakes.
Looking younger than his 65 years and showing hardly a trace of the toll 40 years of coaching could take, Parker didn't appear to be the senior member of the Gilbert schools' football coaching ranks.

Despite having kidney transplant surgery last February, Parker is still coaching and winning football games. He enters tonight's game at Corona del Sol with 284 victories, second only to Mountain Pointe's Karl Kiefer among Valley coaches.

The coveted 300-win milestone is within his reach, but Parker said he doesn't know whether he will continue coaching beyond this year. One thing is known: When Parker hangs up his whistle, Arizona will miss one of its coaching legends.

My son was in that August practice, and the weeklong camp before that, and the passing league scrimmages before that, and the weightlifting before that; he could write an interesting article on Coach Parker, I'm sure. I love football, I love team sports, I love the discipline that my son has nurtured by pursuing his passion. I don't really love the pressure that has come to rest on high school sports, the win-at-all-costs mentality, the overlooking of bad character in good athletes. But that's all part of the package, and part of maturing is learning how to deal with undesirable situations in real life.

Go, Tigers!