There's nothing sweeter than the smell of fresh cut grass on an August morning…

In small towns all across America, high school football teams are preparing for their upcoming seasons. That sweet odor still brings me fond memories.

It's been over 40 years ago since I put on a football uniform, but I remember two-a-day practices like they were yesterday. I played for the Lexington Wildcats in Lexington, SC, but this story could have taken place in any community anywhere.

High school football is a right of passage in every small town. It's a way of life. In some communities where the availability of athletes is slim at best, they still play, sometimes with 8-man teams. Nebraska comes to mind.

Whether you're three deep at all positions or you played both ways on every down like we did when I was in high school, this high school football "thing of ours" was and is a special time in the lives of teenagers.

"Dixie" was our fight song at Lexington. There was nothing more exciting than running through the painted Wildcat canvass that hung from the goal post in the end zone to the applause of thousands of frantic fans that showed up two hours earlier to get a decent seat.

Those fight songs that act as an audio backdrop to every team's entrance on gridirons all over. Whether you're a player on the field, a cheerleader on the sideline, a band member who marches at halftime, a family member in the stands or just a member of the community who is loyal to the "blue and gold" (our team colors), you feel you have a vested interest in what's going under those Friday night lights.

Many years ago, I had the privilege of being a sideline play-by-play radio broadcaster for Lexington High School. When I moved to Florida in 1989, I transferred from the radio air waves to press booth announcer, where I did play-by-play for my son's team, the St. Cloud Bulldogs. Now that my three sons have graduated, I do a similar job for the Harmony Longhorn Pop Warner team.

While I was never paid for doing these broadcasting jobs over the years, I always took them as seriously as a full-fee speaking engagement.

At St. Cloud High I would actually go out to the school during the week and record interviews with members of the football team and others. We would run those conversations during the pre-game show and at halftime. People would show up two hours early just to hear these discussions with players, band members, cheerleaders, trainers, coaches and anybody else who had something to do with what was going on between the sidelines.

The whole setting of a high school athletic event is one of the pictorial centerpieces of small town America. It's like baseball, apple pie, Sunday church services and involvement in civic and fraternal organizations. It's a way of life.

And while winning is universally important in every town, the whole process of participating is even more important. It's why kids sweat through those two-a-day practices in 100 degree heat in August… so they can take the field on Friday night.

I have heard the social scientists trash the entire concept of such things as high school athletic events. I'm here to tell you it's not about athletics; it's not about football; it's not about sports or winning or losing or any of those things. It's all about a sense of "community." That's why people are drawn to this setting.

No football game would be complete without a sideshow of sorts. You know the kind of thing that happens. The tuba player turns in the wrong direction during the halftime show. The petite cheerleader who is thrown into the air is dropped by the group who was supposed to catch her.

And yes, occasionally a lineman recovers a loose football and lumbers in the wrong direction for what he thought was the first touchdown of his otherwise mediocre career. He pounds the ball into the turf and celebrates as his teammates race down the field to give him the bad news. Or, yours truly, the announcer, mucks up a word or two in describing his gallop into the wrong end zone.

You have got to love it all… high school football is a right of passage!