Project One: Draft with Conference Notes

There’s nothing like a Friday night in South Georgia during high-school football season. Sound stereotypical but I absolutely love it. A stadium filled with ten thousand people that had a tendency to overflow all there for the same reason. Its gives a whole new sense to being a community. Blinding lights shining onto the field. You can smell the boiled peanuts, and burgers throughout the stadium. Everyone can put aside their differences to support their team. It doesn’t get much better than that. My high school was the only one in Colquitt County, a county of about 46,00 people, therefore every student from tenth to twelfth grade within 557 square miles attended my high school. With a little over 1,500 students, my high school was in the largest classification by the Georgia High School Association. This was due to the fact of not only having 1,500 students at one school, but also the percent of students that attended Colquitt County High School from outside the county. High School Football is big deal in South Georgia, but my high school football team is legitimately the best. I can say this because we have the rings to prove it. My junior and senior year my team went 30-0, won the Georgia High School State Championships two years in row, and we won the 2016 National High School Championships. I wasn’t a player, so why is this such a big deal? Well, I was so dedicated to supporting my team I was a part of our student section, The Colquitt Crazies. When I was involved in the student section we did everything in our power to show our football players love and support.

Every game day was organized like clockwork, and fun….. But two games stand

Like clockwork, before every game the Paint-up Crew would meet near the stadium and to paint our clothes and bodies almost entirely regardless of the weather. The theme of the week was chosen by a group of seniors each time, and the phrase spelt out by the paint up crew was always determined at the paint up spot. This was because there was never a guarantee of how many people would be painting up. For the most part the same fifteen to eighteen people showed up to demonstrate their love for the Colquitt County Packers, however, we quickly learned improvising, while at times stressful, always had to be done. The guys and girls would split up at paint two different phrases to have the most involvement within the student body. We would always paint up at the same spot because the guys had difficultly painting the actual letters on themselves, so they requested for help. [LC1]

Two of my favorite games were during my senior year. We payed tribute to the victims of 9/11 on 9/11. Covered in red, white and blue house paint[LC2] , the guys spelt out “Never Forget” and the girls spelt out “United We Stand.” In October we supported breast cancer awareness month and painted ourselves pink[LC3] . The girls spelt “Fight Like A Girl” while the guys were entirely pink. It was typically a “rule” the guys stood on the front row of the student section while the girls stood behind them, but this game was different. Because of the theme the girls got to stand on the front row, which really isn’t that big of a deal but it was memorable.

We didn’t just stop at painting up; oh no we went all out. We would shoot off confetti canons and throw baby powder (flour wasn’t allowed) at kickoff. We made fat heads that were about 2-3 feet tall of the Seniors captains for each week. The Fat heads were large cut outs of each of the players faces. After the game, sometimes the fat heads were given to the players, their mothers, or girlfriends. [LC4] Typically, this rambunctiousness of teenagers would make any adult cringe, but because there was such a strong sense of community, our school spirt [LC5] was encouraged. I only missed 3 games my entire high school career and two of those were due to sports related injuries. This was a community I was proud of. Outside of Colquitt County, we may not have been significant to many people, however the looks on the players faces when they saw us before every game proved our insanity did have a purpose. Since our team was quite large, it was often the case for some of the third and fourth string players to feel less appreciated due to lack of field playing time. We made sure to let them know they were appreciated as well. They might not have been on the field, but they were still part of the team. [LC6] The pure joy I received from each game day experience is something I hope to remember for forever.

[LC1]Nice dig

[LC2]Lowe’s paint. How big the buckets were. What kind of paintbrushes.

[LC3]Not many people have been painted before. What’s that like? Cold, peeling it off—relateviely easy to remove

[LC4]Really interested. Tell me more?

Sometimes they would reappear, sometimes we would never see them again.

[LC5]Talk about push-ups

[LC6] A specific example of when a player expressed some sort of appreciation for what you did. Or maybe you are inwardly convicted that this is true.