Toss Me One of Them Plastic Footballs

High school football. I’m a fan but not a reporter so skip this column if you’re searching for meaningful analysis of the results. Most fans don’t need expert analysis anyway. They get enough of that in the stands during the game.

I prefer instead to address a subplot that unfolds during every occurrence of tackle football . . . the cheerleaders.

Occasionally these young ladies will catch my eye and I am reminded of my glory days back in high school when our loyal cheerleaders yelled, screamed, and pyramided their way through season after losing football season. Only once did our team win as many as we lost yet the girls persevered, smiling and dancing while we got the tar whooped out of us.

And they had those little footballs they threw into the stands. You know, those miniature plastic kind that usually have a bank advertisement plastered on the side. Fans fought for those things like they were winning lottery tickets.

Flash forward twenty-five years or so. Except that the girls now stand on boxes, things haven’t changed all that much. There’s still that one cheerleader who will taunt the fans with her little football, always waiting to be last to toss it while grown-up adults scream, holler, and gesture for her to chunk it their direction.

And there’s usually one who establishes eye contact with someone in the high up bleachers but whose ball can’t complete the entire journey to its intended throw-ee due to a lack of arm strength on the part of the throw-er. Of course there is one young lady who shows off her arm by firing a rocket into the upper reaches after which some smart-aleck fan always remarks, “She should be the quarterback.”

They throw rolled up t-shirts, mini-megaphones, coupons, whatever. They could be throwing a rolled up IRS audit notice and mature, grown-up adults would bowl over the person next to them to get it.

I have a confession. I’ve never caught one of those little plastic advertisement footballs. I was on the field during my high school years so I could only dream about snagging one. And I’ve been at the wrong place at the wrong time ever since.

So far this year I have painfully witnessed my step-mother-in-law, a toddler with a pacifier, and a lady who looked like somebody’s grandmother make grabs that I could only admire with envy.

I thought my losing streak was destined to end at a recent jayvee game when I made eye contact with a family friend-cheerleader who happened to be grasping one of the coveted prizes. She nodded and chunked it my direction.

Bein’s how her dad was a catcher on the baseball team in college, it shouldn’t have surprised me when she turned out to be the one cheerleader on her squad with the golden arm. The treasure sailed over my outstretched arms and landed in an elderly man’s lap five rows above me. Oh well.

It won’t be the same if somebody hands me one. I will earn it fair and square. But beware if you’re sitting near me at a game anytime soon. I might knock you over to get whatever it is they throw, even if it’s only a roll of toilet paper. It’s the thrill of the catch I crave.