What it was, was football

Yes, we went to the baseball game last night. But we also went to the football game.

You see, the Wife and I -- okay, it's me, but she goes along -- think that we should attend at least one game of the local sports teams.

We went to a basketball game when the NBDL team was here. Don't care for basketball, but the team was local, so...

We go to at least one Cottonmouths hockey game a year. When they were CHL, ECHL, and now SPHL. Don't care for ice hockey, but the team is local, so...

And, last year, we went to a Chattahoochee Valley Vipers game. The game was okay -- indoor football takes a little getting used to -- and I went back to more games.

That team was thrown out of town for not paying their bills, dropped from the league, and folded.

But several teams got together and started a new league. Including a different team in Columbus: the Columbus Lions. The league settled to four teams, and they started play this year.

Well, last night was the first football game the Wife and I went to. They played the Daytona Beach Thunder, a team from last year's league that jumped to the new league.

The game was scheduled to start at 7:00 PM. So, we got there about 6:00 so we could watch all the pre-game activities.

It turned out the pre-game activities consisted of:

• "We sell food and soft drinks at this register, but no beer."


• "A program? Hey, Charlie, how much are the programs? Two dollars? A dollar? A dollar."


• "You see where the restrooms are?" "Yeah, they're over there."

Or so I thought.

Because we got our drinks, a program, and sat down to watch the stuff on the field.

Not much happened before 7:00.

But then, about 7:08, they cleared the field and the band lined up.

It was a bunch of high school kids from different schools in the area. And they sounded pretty good. But bands these days seem to included dancers instead of twirlers. And they did their spread-leg, pelvic-thrusting dancing that seems to be the thing to do. High school girls didn't do that when I was in high school. Not during the games, anyway.

There was a singer that sang a religious song. No, it wasn't one of those almost-religious songs. But neither as it a traditional hymn, either. Still, it was of a religious nature. Slow tempo, about like that of "Wind Beneath My Wings" or "My Tribute."
And the dancers danced along.

I'm not quite used to a line of girls in t-shirts and short shorts slow-dancing to a religious song. It looked like the choir from the Dirty Dancing A.M.E. Church.

Then, a drumline performance. Which I don't get, either.

Then, the band left and the team Dance Team came out. Not to be confused with the dancers in the band. These girls were grown. Yeah.

Finally, around 7:45, they were almost ready for the 7:00 game to start.

The game itself? Pretty good football. Not great, but good. Real good. Yeah, I'd go back.

To watch the football game. Not the Dance Team.

But, if the Dance Team is there, I'll be polite and watch. And maybe I'll get seats closer to the Dance Team. Uh, I mean closer to the football field.

Football: Life and Death

I was excited ... to some degree ... when I found out that Columbus was going to have a football team returning this season. You see, Columbus has had two indoor football teams leave in recent years, and now there's a third team in town.

The Columbus Wardogs were an arenafootball2 team that became the Mississippi Headhunters. They never caught on in Columbus. Partly because they were bad. Partly because Columbus won't support a team.

Last year, the Chattahoochee Valley Vipers played, but were kicked out of the city for financial mismanagement.

Columbus isn't a pro sports town. And certainly not a pro football town.

Around here ... like most of Georgia and most of the South ... college football -- excuse me, College Football (capitalized, of course) -- is king.

Some say that College Football isn't life and death, it's much more important than that.

But Monday night, we found out that football ... even indoor football ... can be life and death.

Columbus does have an indoor football team: the Columbus Lions.

The Lions opened their WIFL season on the road against the Daytona Beach Thunder, a team the Vipers played in the AIFL (now AIFA) last year.

While the Lions won, the game wasn't important.

You see, during the game, a player died.

Javon Camon, apparently suffered a broken neck and died on the field during Monday night's game. Everything points to his death occuring on a "clean play" ... that is, not a cheap shot. It was on a play where he was blocked by the Lion's (and former Ft. Valley State and Columbus Hardaway High standout) Cedric Ware as Camon was trying to make a tackle. Current reports call it "an accident."

Football, whether on the playground, at high schools, on college campuses, on pro fields, or in arenas, is a violent sport. Deaths are very rare. But they happen. They're tragic.

No, football isn't as important as life and death.

But I wonder sometimes if life and death is as important as football is to some people.