A football tale

Editor's note: Linda Seger of Cedar Rapids is a retired freelance writer and photographer, grandmother of 30 children and a multitude of their friends and team members. She participated in track, softball and basketball in high school. Sportswriting runs in her family. Her stepbrothers are former Gazette sportswriter Bob Hersom and recently retired Sioux City Journal sports editor Terry Hersom.

CEDAR RAPIDS — On a cold November night a silent silhouette stands at the gate of an aging high school stadium.

The solitary figure is that of a man looking out toward the 50-yard-line. His form indicates a person with a physique a Roman Gladiator would envy. The only lighting across the frosty turf is provided by security lamps.

The scoreboard looms overhead, dark and awaiting winter before a new year brings it to life again. The ropes hooked to the flagpole snap against the metal with the somber sound of an ancient chime.

Why is this person here? What draws him to this empty area so late at night?

In his hands he clutches what appears to be a football. So still he stands. No cheering crowds, referee whistles now quiet, Music from the pep band plays only in his mind and the horns ending the quarters gone.

The wind is bitter cold. In the distance the city glows and steam rises into the sky. He turns slowly, looking back only once.

Shadows across his face do not hide that this is a young man. Somewhere in transition from boyhood to manhood he has a full life ahead. The eyes are filled with tears as he deals with the emotion of growing up and graduating on to a new chapter of his life. He is a Gladiator of the Gridiron like the thousands who came before him and the thousands who will follow.

His predecessors understand why he is at that deserted stadium late at night. Since a small child this game has been his life and now he must stand at the edge of a new life. May he never forget the journey, the highs and lows but most of all the brotherhood. This will always be a part of his life, drawing him as it has others back in many forms throughout his adult life.

May our Gladiators forever know they were remarkable in so many ways.