The concept of rooting for teenage boys to defeat other teenage boys from another county in an athletic contest seems like it probably goes back to the times of the Roman Empire and the Coliseum.
But we hold that tradition even today on Friday nights, when we send our burgeoning young men into battle to prove which is the superior football team.
The amount of pride we take in challenging other communities so much like our own is something innate inside of us. It’s in our DNA to try to gain a foothold over our opposing neighbors.
Fortunately, this was probably done far more through warring violence in centuries past, so we have certainly evolved quite a bit.
Still, it feels good to have pride in our football team, and we will need to swell that pride tonight when the Raiders host their first home game of the season against White County.
The whole county has been talking about the loss to Stephens County, likely because those losses have sadly been too frequent over the last three decades or so. But that should not diminish the love and pride we have for our own team.
These boys beat themselves up in practice every day, while also going to school and in some cases, working jobs as well.
Our Lady Raiders deserve our adulation as well for the hard work they put in to succeed at their sports. All our student-athletes are worthy of our pride and our support.
But there is nothing quite like football, which seems to gather everyone from every corner of the community for one spectacular event per week in the fall.
Habersham Central has some of the best coaches in the state in all of its sports, and they have worked hard to prepare our student athletes to show off their talents to all of us.
So we need to fill that Raider Stadium and cheer them on. We need to hear that often-imitated, but never-duplicated Band of Blue play that song from “Superman: The Movie” to get us fired up for the ballgame.
And we need everyone to remember that putting forth our very best effort is always worthy of our appreciation as a community.
Winning would also be nice, so do everything you can to support our teams and help them taste the sweet nectar of victory.