Sports Editor

Almost before it began, football season is coming to a close.

At least in the high school ranks, that is.

What is it about high school football that keeps people in the south transfixed for 10 or 15 weeks out of the year?

I’d say it runs in our blood.

Even though we’re all God-fearing, peace-loving individuals, the chance to gather around a 100-yard pasture and watch 22 young men fight over an oblong piece of leather, is just too good to pass up.

Football is violence without, (God help us), the death. It’s controlled blood letting, like surgeons did in the middle ages when a person was gripped by fever.

At our basest, we are all violent individuals with a need to be the best. Football provides that outlet.

We want to win. We want to thrash an opponent beyond all recognition and make his momma cry. We want to watch our boys pop snot bubbles out of those other kids across the line, while we eat our hot dogs and nachos and catch M&M’s in our mouths.

In the south, we’ve been conditioned to have that urge. That need to be better then anyone else. It comes from that episode in our history called the American Civil War and the years of Northern occupation that followed. Our pride was hurt, people. We just flat out got whipped.

150 years later, I’d say that whipping was just. From the Civil War sprang Civil Rights and equality for everyone living in the United States.

Of course, when football was born, the Southerner saw his chance to get even. Bear Bryant turned the University of Alabama into the team everyone in the nation wanted to beat and collected national titles like thieves collect hubcaps.

And despite those championships and the Bear’s record number of wins, what stuck in most people’s craw was that Ara Ara Parseghian and Notre Dame, a northern university, consistently got the better of Bryant.

So the fight continues and anytime a team from the south plays one from the north, some for ‘Bama and Auburn and TSU,

silently, if not vocally, root for those southern boys.

In high school football we just settle with whipping each other.

Now to this week’s picks.

CHHS at Wilcox-Central: So how much is riding on this game? A lot. The Trojans can claim the regional championship with a win, while a loss drops them to No. 3 in the league. That would mean having to travel in the first round of the playoffs to either Benjamin Russell or Eufaula. We’ve all seen what those two teams have been doing in the past few weeks. Scary.

But so is the Jaguars. Greenville beat CHHS 19-13 and when it came the Tigers time to play in Camden, Wilcox-Central force fed them a 24-0 beating. Greenville had -56 yards of…no, not rushing, but total offense.

If the Jags score. And score. And score again early, the Trojans might as well start packing for a road trip on Nov. 9. But if it’s close, especially going into the fourth quarter, the Jaguars will have to warm up the lights at Wilcox Stadium for a first round opponent. They’ll finish No. 2. CHHS 21, Wilcox 20.

Pike County at Stanhope-Elmore: This was one of the more promising match-ups for the Bulldogs last year in Brundidge, before the Mustangs got hot early, winning 25-6. Stanhope has been down this season, especially by, you know, Stanhope standards. They’ve still got talent in Millbrook and they always seem to play better at home. Unless that team is Eufaula, who waxed the Mustangs earlier this year. (Pick a team, other then Benjamin Russell, who Eufaula hasn’t waxed lately. Pike County’s on that list as well.) Stanhope’s 5A and PCHS is 3A, but the Bulldogs have improved since the first two weeks of the season. Pike County 28, Stanhope-Elmore 13.

Goshen at Pleasant Home: How pleasant things are in Pleasant Home this season! Prior to last year, the Eagles had not had a varsity football team in over 60 years and they one won game. This season, they’ve lost just twice and have won seven games. They’ll also finish runner-up to G.W. Long in Class 1A region play and will host a first round playoff game next week. What a turnaround!

Goshen, meanwhile, has made a living this season by winning games the have no business winning. They beat both Highland Home and Straughn, two teams that were once ranked in the 2A Top Ten, and despite depth problems, have consistently played over their heads, so to speak.

Pleasant Home’s new to this winning business, so I’ll take Goshen.

Goshen 21, Pleasant Home 14.