From the Sidelines – Bye week takes a toll on football fans!

It’s amazing how much you can miss something you never thought you would.

This past week has been terrible – just terrible – without having any high school football games to cover. Oh sure, I got to watch a whole lot of college games on television, but it was not the same.

I mean, how can you enjoy a game while lying on a couch in yesterday’s clothes feel

ing like someone kicked you in the…? Don’t ask. What happens in Austin stays in Austin. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that I really felt I missed out on something big just because I did not get my usual fix of Friday Night Lights last week.
In fact, I was so miserable, I made myself physically sick. No kidding. My immune system went down and all bets were off. I got sick. Well, sick enough to spend my entire weekend in bed or on the couch pretending to watch TV when in reality, I was sleeping like a baby.
It is crazy, but I am willing to bet that I would not have allowed myself to get sick if I had had to be at a football game on Friday.

Sounds silly, I know, but think about it. If your brain knows it has to keep your body functioning until a certain task is taken care of at any given moment it would not allow it to fail.

Some sort of extra adrenaline would kick in and all would be well, at least until the task that needed to be performed was completed.

How many times have you trudged through something and got it done regardless of how tired you felt simply because it needed to be done or out of a great sense of responsibility and dedication finished it? Countless.

Here is another one. How many of you have experienced getting sick while on vacation? If you are anything like me, then you folks are probably too many to count.

The truth is most of us are of the driven sort. We keep on keeping on and until something knocks us off our —. Much like the Energizer Bunny, we just keep going and going and going and…

Did I learn anything this weekend? Yes I did. I learned that I really love my job. I learned I enjoy taking pictures and more importantly, I enjoy taking pictures of our community, especially our schools and our students. I learned I really enjoy watching our children grow into fine young men and women through their respective sport.

I do enjoy covering all sports, but like most of you, I am especially thrilled to be covering the Lions and look forward to covering them into December. I do like Texas high school football.

What else did I learn this weekend?

Well, one very important lesson, I need to relax. I need to learn to take better care of myself. I need to take time to rest my body as well as my mind. I need to take it easy no matter what sport I am covering.

One final lesson learned, if I ever get another Friday off, stay close to home.
Dorothy was so right, “there is no place like home.”

The Lions will be traveling to Del Valle this Friday, Oct. 9 and the game begins at 7:30 p.m.
See you at the game.
agarza@post-register.com