It’s football weather at last

I work in a high-stress, high-pressure job filled with deadlines and all of that madness.

So when I have a little spare time, I like to do these mental exercises to wind down and keep some of that anxiety away. I don’t know if they actually work, but half of the battle is to trick yourself into believing that something is working, right? Fake it until you make it.

So I stumbled upon a pretty cool one last week when unwinding and I thought I’d share it with you all in my column today.

It was a list of words, and the challenge was to write down all of the things that you think of when you see the word.

So let’s do it.

When one says the word football, what do you think of?

For me, I think of the sport, the pageantry, the touchdowns, the student-athletes, the teams, the epic games, the thrilling wins and, of course, the bone-crushing hits.

I think of cheerleaders cheering, marching bands playing, the smell of barbecue in the air and student sections going wild, throwing confetti in the air every chance they get.

But perhaps bigger than all of those things, I think of the fall — oh, the sweet fall.

We’re halfway through the high school football season already. Friday night’s games marked the ending to week 5.

By this point in the season, we’ve usually had a cool front or two to drop temperatures down from oppressively hot to comfortable, if not cool.

But that’s not happened yet.

Games have been hot, humid and downright uncomfortable. Student-athletes have suffered from cramping and fans have enjoyed the games, sure. But they’ve deposited about a pound of sweat in the concrete bleachers.

But finally, this week, we’re going to get the taste of a little fall.

Granted, we’re putting this publication to bed on Sunday afternoon, and the front will not have passed yet.

But I trust our local weathermen to stake our reputation on the fact that a front will sweep by early this week and will hang around throughout the week to make the weather more bearable.

With fall officially here and the second half of the season now upon us, it’s time for our local teams to play their best football at the right time.

In the local 5A district, all bets are off. Do you know who is better than anyone else on a given week? If so, fill me in because we sure don’t have a clue. That district is stricken with parity and it will be so much fun watching the Bayou teams try and keep up with the River teams throughout the course of the year.

In Class 4A, Assumption looks like the lead dog right now, but I still think there’s a really good chance that some of our local teams can challenge them and make them work hard to try and win the district title. Our Class 4A District is young, which tells me that a lot of the teams will play their best football in the final games of the year.

And in Class 1A, 2A and 3A, we’re still not sure yet, either, though we know all of those districts are tough and E.D. White, Houma Christian and CCA will have their hands full.

Good luck to all of our local teams the rest of the way and leave it all out on the field.

Some have started slow, others have started quick.

Regardless, everyone’s goals and aspirations are still fully within reach.

We’ll be watching, and we’ll be enjoying this amazing weather to boot.

Football weather is finally here!