The Season

In the fall of 2011, my family lived, breathed and ate football.

Both my boys donned blue jerseys for St. Louis University High School, a Jesuit all-boys prep school in St. Louis, Mo: Matt, a senior defensive end on the varsity and Jack learning the game for the freshmen team playing on both sides of the ball.

It was, quite literally, the season of our lives as SLUH’s varsity team came within a game of playing for the state championship. For 13 weeks that fall, I blogged two, sometimes three times per week, and, along with amazing photography from fellow SLUH mom Nancy Winkelmann, created a website that chronicled every game, every triumph, every heartache.

It is called The Season: The Year Football Ate Us Out of House and Home, and I think it will stand the test of time for anyone who gets misty-eyed just hearing the first few chords of Kenny Chesney’s The Boys of Fall, or who can spend an entire weekend binge-watching Friday Night Lights.

And for all moms and dads whose mouth went dry and heart started pounding watching their son run out onto the turf on a cool, crisp fall Friday night.

Among the highlights:

A feature on SLUH Stadium, and how sometimes, there’s magic in the air.

The thrilling 93-point playoff game against DeSmet, which some called the greatest high school football game in St. Louis history — and they might be right.

How a mom survives watching her son endure — and walk off the field — after a crowd-gasping, helmet-flying hit.

Features on brothers who play for different schools; a soccer player who became a placekicker, and how a quarterback who is headed to the Ivy League orchestrated the season’s greatest comeback.

Now, that freshman just learning to play the game is now in spring practices for his sophomore season at Div. III DePauw University. The seasons continue.