Friday night lights, finally, in Winchester

I grad­u­at­ed from high school in 1980 in a tiny Eastern Kentucky town where Friday night lights were some­thing oth­er schools had. Wolfe County High School didn’t even field a foot­ball team, so bas­ket­ball owned the cal­en­dar, and as a pep band mem­ber I spent four years play­ing my way through near­ly every game.

Game nights were nev­er only about the final score. For most of my peers and me, they were about see­ing friends, wear­ing the school col­ors, hol­ler­ing for class­mates, and feel­ing for a few hours like the whole town was packed into one gym.

I thought I’d be a life­long attendee at ball games at my alma mater.

But going off to col­lege and every­thing that fol­lowed — work, fam­i­ly, chil­dren, and oth­er adult respon­si­bil­i­ties — soon crept in to my life almost invis­i­bly. Eventually, I found decades had passed since my last high school sport­ing event.

That changed a few months ago, when I returned to WCHS to watch the base­ball team defeat Hazard for the 14^th region­al cham­pi­onship, send­ing my beloved Wolves to the state tour­na­ment for only the sec­ond time.

Spending time at the beau­ti­ful new WCHS facil­i­ty, soak­ing in the atmos­phere and the excite­ment, chat­ting with old friends and class­mates — it all took me back to my younger, more care­free days.

New town, new colors

When we moved to Winchester near­ly 11 years ago, one of the things I want­ed to do was see a foot­ball game, espe­cial­ly with the brand new state-of-the-art facil­i­ties at George Rogers Clark High School. 

Over those years, my wife and I would some­times sit on our back porch — bare­ly more than a stone’s throw from Cardinal Stadium — and let the sounds drift over to us: the announcer’s voice, the band warm­ing up, the crowd swelling after a big play.

We kept say­ing to each oth­er that the next Friday home game, we were going to be there.

But life kept get­ting in the way — and fel­low intro­verts will under­stand this part — so did the sim­ple dif­fi­cul­ty of pry­ing our­selves off the couch after a long work week. For ten years, we talked about going but nev­er did.

That changed this week.

We final­ly got moti­vat­ed to check out the expe­ri­ence of watch­ing a foot­ball game under the lights at Cardinal Stadium. And what a night it was!

A feast for the senses

The bright lights glared against the night sky under a full moon. The band punched through the chat­ter. The con­ces­sion stand sent out that unmis­tak­able mix of food and fall foot­ball. And then came the fire­works — on the field and in the sky.

For a few hours, the whole place seemed to hum — foot­ball, music, food, fire­works, teenagers, par­ents, alum­ni, and neigh­bors all mov­ing to the same Friday-night rhythm.

The game itself deserves at least a brief men­tion, even though this is less a sports sto­ry than a per­son­al reflection.

Under first-year head coach Dane Damron, the local boys won the con­test against one of West Virginia’s top grid­iron squads, Huntington, by a final score of 42–23.

According to MaxPreps, Huntington is ranked fourth in West Virginia’s Class AAAA and sixth over­all — after the loss to the Cards. The same web­site moved GRC from No. 40 over­all in Kentucky to No. 26 fol­low­ing the victory.

But vic­to­ry was far from assured for the Cardinals for almost three quarters.

The home team led by a touch­down at half­time, but with under six min­utes left in the third quar­ter, the vis­i­tors had pushed ahead 17–14. From there, GRC poured it on the Highlanders, pulling away for a 42–23 vic­to­ry and mov­ing to 2–0 in the ear­ly days of the Damron era.

The fire­works caught me by sur­prise — first as the home team ran onto the field, then after every touch­down, and once more in a short burst after the final whis­tle. I don’t remem­ber hear­ing them from the sta­di­um before, so maybe this is a new tradition.

The night offered more than foot­ball. Before the game, sev­er­al peo­ple were induct­ed into the Clark County Athletics Hall of Fame. At half­time, the GRC girls bas­ket­ball team received cham­pi­onship rings from their recent state title. And in between it all, the GRC band remind­ed every­one that Friday night lights are about far more than the scoreboard.

Up in the media booth, my good friend Ken Howard was call­ing the game and slip­ping in his trade­mark corny jokes.

I would be remiss if I failed to men­tion how impressed we were with the logis­tics of putting on such an ath­let­ic event. From the many police offi­cers and stu­dents who assist­ed with get­ting us to a park­ing space, to the folks who run con­ces­sions and all the oth­er jobs required to pull this off, the prepa­ra­tion and exe­cu­tion seemed to us perfect. 

Making community

Taken togeth­er, all of this made me feel less like a spec­ta­tor and more like a small part of the com­mu­ni­ty gath­ered under those lights.

Watching young ath­letes give it their all for the team. Seeing gift­ed play­ers, cheer­lead­ers, dancers, and class­mates all doing their part. Hearing the band — my good­ness, the GRC band! Looking around at a sta­di­um that feels like a show­case for our com­mu­ni­ty and our school system.

For a lit­tle while, it was easy to for­get that I’m an aging man who goes on Medicare next month. My broth­er, who recent­ly retired from teach­ing back home, always told me that being around young peo­ple was like stand­ing near “the foun­tain of youth.”

Now I get it.

Find a detailed descrip­tion of the game in Matt Cizek’s report in The Winchester Sun.