healthy spirit of athletes

Tonight, many high school seniors will walk on to a football field as a player for the last time in their lives.

Having experienced the comradery the game offers, the physical and mental challenges it presents and the discipline it requires, many of these seniors have been made better people by their devotion to the game.

In recent years, aggressive contact sports – like football – have come under fire by leftist organizations that claim the games and sports lead to an idea that brutality and violence should be encouraged.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Almost every team sport is about friendships, discipline and work ethic. Young men who are willing to practice for hours in broiling equipment under an intense Alabama summer sun deserve to be seen as what they are – dedicated, hard-working sportsmen.

Most of the players who play tonight will never play in an organized football game ever again, and those who don’t, like those who do, have brought honor to the sport.

Here there are no losers or has-beens.