Sport how it should be

I've just got back in from watching a high school American football match between Covington and Mandeville. What strikes me about the whole thing is the way sport is such a major part of the towns life.

I'm told that the two schools playing each other have roughly 3,000 pupils. Out of those students they manage to find, about 80+ football players, about 50+ cheerleaders and probably another 50 members of the band. I wonder how many schools in the UK of equal size could even find people who could play instruments.

A good sized crowd turned out to watch the game and were entertained not just by the actual game play but by live music and dance routines making it all to easy to be distracted and miss some great plays on the field.

When you consider that this was just the show put on by two local school teams there's no wonder they produce some excellent athletes.

Whilst at the game tonight i happened to check out the photographers shooting the game and noticed my good friend Chuck Cook was on the sideline. I first met Chuck about a month ago in London when he was in the UK to shoot the NFL game at Wembley. I phoned him on his mobile and asked if he had got the last shot, needless to say he was very suprised to see someone who he'd last seen some 6,000 miles away in another country.

Over a beer after the game Chuck invited me along to the LSU coaches press briefing on Monday (an offer only a madman would refuse). This is likely to be a great brieifng made even better as LSU have a big game tommorow against Alabama.

Does life get any better than this?