Friday Night Yikes

In Texas, this religion is incredibly important. They dedicate a day of the week to it. They build shrines worth up to 60 million dollars. Small towns shut down when these religious services occur. They have large music bands, dancers, and even services where ladies wear large, expensive things on a particular night.

This religion isn’t Christianity. It’s football. Because of Friday Night Lights and because of where I grew up, people in NYC would ask me if it was that stereotype was true. It is. it’s fun trying to explain what mums are or to show a video of your hometown high school having 17,000 people for a home game.

However, despite all of its pageantry, I’ve become increasingly concerned by how serious it is throughout the state especially at the pee wee level.

in 2013, the Esquire network premiered a show called Friday Night Tykes which followed five San Antonio youth teams. Watching it was surreal. The coaches were way too intense, would cuss, and encouraged their players to injure the other players. One of the coaches portrayed in the show clearly put coaching ahead of his own sons and marriage to the point where his wife filed for divorce. It’s an interesting sociological viewing if you have time on Netflix, but it’s hard to come to terms with what you see on the scree.

Sadly, the absolute worst outcome with this religion happened in Lancaster, Texas, this weekend. Parents upset that their child’s team was losing, went after an opposing coach and shot and killed him in front of his nine year old son. Mike Hickman died this weekend over religion.

I like watching football. I like the longhorns and the cowboys, unfortunately. However, when it comes to the religion of Texas football, I might just have to become agnostic. RIP Mike Hickman.