This story is being written by a non-football person. Nasty words in Seymour – I know. I am not saying that I don’t like football. I do. But I just don’t know a lot about it. That is why you won’t see the typical play-by-play versions written out here. We will leave that to our sports editor Chris Silcox. This story is about football fans written by a blossoming football fan. Not knowing much about football, you may ask, then how can I be a fan? I wondered the same thing and thought it would be interesting to see who comes to the games and why. An hour and a half before last week’s game the parking lots were already filled and the stands were getting close to holding an undetermined amount of bodies.

So who came and why? Here are a few of the
people I talked to.
John Cannon stopped by the Tennessee Graphics office at the Seymour Business Park to pick out a Seymour Eagles shirt for himself and his wife to wear to the game Saturday night. Cannon goes to the games because he graduated from Seymour High in 1975 and now his stepson, Chad Isbill, a senior center plays. Cannon also goes to see some of his friends children, who also play. After taking a break from the games for eight to nine years, he’s excited about being back and says he is looking forward to the games.
Teresa Clayton and Carolyn Ailey braved the pouring down rain to come early for good seats. Their nephew and grandson, Jay Vansickle was playing in the band that evening. “He’s a drum major,” said Ailey. “We like to come to watch him play.”
Scott Norman who coaches basketball at Seymour Middle School came with his daughters and nephew to watch the game. He used to work the concessions all the time and now he says he can actually see the game. “It was hard to see a lot of what was happening from the concessions. It’s nice to see the game from this angle.” When talking with Norman I learned that he had played professional baseball for six years, four with the San Francisco Giants and two with the Saint Louis Cardinals. He’s been teaching at the middle school for ten years now. Interesting, the background of some of the fans.
What stood out in my mind, about the game, was the size of some of the Sevier County players. “These are high school kids?” I thought. Some of them had to be teetering around 300 pounds. I don’t think I’d want my son going head to head with one of them.
So, the first game of the new season is over. Though I wasn’t a “football fan” when I attended the game this last week, I am now. I can’t wait to attend the next game, see the screaming fans, the guy with the football head, the cheerleaders, dancers and band doing their thing. I guess I’ve been bitten by the ‘Seymour Football bug’ and it’s not such a bad bug to catch.

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