Zero hour approaches

Updated: March 28, 2011 12:18PM

For most, that hour, the moment when football teams kick off the 2010 season, cannot get here soon enough.

Players are eager to put to use an offseason of training in the weight room, plus a passing camp, plus 21⁄2 weeks of practice. Optimism abounds, bolstered by either false bravado - nobody goes into a season thinking they're going to lose - or the knowledge that talent and experience will bear fruit.

Coaches, having seen progress (or a lack thereof) in those 21⁄2 weeks are nervous, with more questions than a rookie detective. Will the new quarterback be calm under pressure? Will the offensive line hold up? Will the defense wilt on third down? And is the kicker sure-footed?

For everyone else, football, at least on the high school level, is a curious communal rite. In the grand scheme of things, the results of these games - of any games played by teenagers - shouldn't matter to anyone but those who participate in them.

That there is interest, even in the modern 500-channel world, speaks volumes about the primal desire to watch people knock other people's blocks off. If it weren't there, the game would have been outlawed entirely in 1906, when deaths and serious injuries were rampant in football.

Instead, for safety's sake, blockers were no longer permitted to link arms and the forward pass was invented. A savage sport was tamed, with enough violence to satiate the masses, but enough technical play to stave off criticism from do-gooders.

The innovations have continued apace since, and the game, from the preps to the pros, shows no sign of fading from the spotlight. King Football, it was named derisively by William DuBois more than a century ago, and the moniker stuck.

Students go to games, and a few of them actually pay attention. Parents go to games and often watch with their hearts, rather than their eyes. Their kid can do no wrong, even if he's been called for holding three times in four series.

Success is not automatic. At some schools, the marching band is the better half of the entertainment. At others, the PA announcer thinks he's the show and blathers on incessantly, even while the quarterback is trying to call the play.

Forty-two schools in our area play football. There are as many story lines as the season dawns.

For Providence Catholic and Marist, it's a chance to improve on last year's near championships, grand efforts that fell short only in their respective title games in Champaign.

For St. Rita, the only area school ending its playoffs with a victory, the goal is to convert a Prep Bowl championship - something once bigger than life - into a state title run.

For Thornridge, the opportunity exists to reverse years of losing, thanks to ace running back Mika'il McCall and new coach Mike Morrissey.

For Eisenhower, it's a chance to post a victory for the first time since the final regular-season game of 2008, a 28-0 rout of Evergreen Park. The Cardinals have lost 10 straight since, including a playoff tiff to Rock Island after the pummeling of the Mustangs.

For everyone in between, while the variables are different, the goal is the same. Win this weekend, by any means necessary. Start the season successfully, and build from there.

The grind of two-a-days in the heat has been replaced this week by after-school run-throughs. Game week gives coaches a chance to focus their teams on an opponent, rather than on running into each other.

There is purpose in practicing that blocking scheme, the one that might spring the junior halfback, the one the opposition hasn't seen on tape, for a big gain. And this time, maybe practicing the onside kick will work.

There's an old saying - many coaches believe it, some do not - that a team will show the most improvement from the first to the second week of the season.

That may or may not be true. That's also next week. With games this weekend, next week is farther off than Alpha Centauri. Finally, it is Zero Hour.

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