Friday night football games are legendary in the South. From small towns to big cities, people love to rally around the home-town team, honoring athletes, wearing matching jerseys and filling the stadium seats. Doesn’t matter if it’s 98 degrees or 10 below, die-hard football fans show up.

What helps fuel the passion is often a cross-town rivalry. Growing up, my alma mater, Baker High School, was always in competition with Glen Oaks High School situated a few miles away.

Those games were always the most fun with chants and school pride thrown around like Mardi Gras beads.

Terry High and Lamar Consolidated High School are similar rivals. Lamar CHS was the first high school built when the Richmond and Rosenberg high schools combined into one school district, Lamar CISD. Terry was built soon afterwards.

Other high schools have come into the area, but Terry and Lamar have always maintained a friendly rivalry. So it was with good cheer fans from both sides crowded into Traylor Stadium for the fourth annual Battle of the Berg.

The schools have played each other numerous times, but the good-natured rivalry heated back up about four years ago. Since then, there’s a big bell that goes to the winner of The Battle of the Berg as well as bragging rights for the next year.

Each year, the schools choose a worthy organization to donate funds to and an organization to honor.

Firefighters and police officers were chosen this year and rightly so. Our first responders put their lives on the line every time they go out on a call. Most of us can’t say our jobs require us to risk our lives, but first responders sign up and then carry out that promise.

Before the game, police officers ran onto the field with the Lamar team, and firefighters ran onto the field with the Terry team.

Some of these brave men and women stood alongside the players on the 50-yard line for the coin toss to see who’d be receiving the ball first.

They were then invited to stand on the track as bystanders for an up-close view of the game, and they had huge smiles on their faces as they watched the football game unfold.

That is until they heard shouting in the stands and people pointing into the crowd. Immediately, these wonderful officers turned around and immediately jumped up and climbed over the fence to get to the person who’d passed out.

Men and women officers were on their radios as officers ran up the stands carrying medical equipment. With first responders giving him oxygen and monitoring his vital signs, the young man regained consciousness and the officers carefully brought him down on a stretcher where he recovered.

When things calmed down, the first responders came back down to the track to finish watching the game. I commended them for their quick action, and they said it was part of their job. They never know when they’re needed, but when they are, they’re there.

These first responders came to the Battle of the Berg to watch two rival teams compete to see who’d take home the trophy.

Instead, they saved someone’s life.

That’s the difference between what first responders do and the rest of us. At a minute’s notice, they are called upon to save a life, and the trophy was immediately forgotten. A life was much more important.

We are beyond blessed to have these fine men and women in our midst.

Thank you, first responders, for all you do, no matter where you are.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.