High school football. Something so powerful, it can gather a divided community together on a Friday night. Stadiums light up like rocketships across the central Texas  landscape. With the pressure from high school, football is a chance for the whole school to come together and cheer for something that they follow and believe.

“My favorite thing about our Friday night games is getting out on the field and being aggressive,” sophomore varsity tight-end Matthew Hutton said. “I’m very competitive and really want to get a chance to show the other team my skills.”

Whether it is ingrained into family as a shared passion or something to do instead of sitting at home, many football players started out from an early age.

“I started playing football in the fourth grade with Pop-Warner,” sophomore junior varsity offensive lineman Grafton Maguire said. “My mom made made me join the team to stay healthy. I was upset for the first few years because I wanted to stay home and play video games, but I eventually started to like it.”

But sometimes football goes beyond the field. Players often bring home values they take away from the field.

“It taught me how to work as a team,” Hutton said. “I’m a tight-end so I have to rely on my offensive line and my quarterback to do their jobs, and if they do nothing can stop us.”

As a left tackle on the offensive live, football has taught Maguire perseverance.

“I get knocked down sometimes during a drive, and I have to get back up and keep playing,” Maguire said. “The same thing happens in life too, you just have to keep getting up.”

But like many things, passions change over time. For Maguire, what used to be a simple activity is now a potential career.

“It’s easier to be honest. I was a bigger kid in the fourth grade, and its was harder for me to do things that the other kids did,” Maguire said. “Now [in high school], it’s just one big family, unlike the daycare it was before in Pop Warner and middle school.”

And with varsity, the importance of football in many of the player’s lives is even more far-reaching.

“It’s way more important now,” Hutton said. “This football thing can decide my future now with scholarships and stuff. This isn’t just an after school program, this is so much more to me.”