By MONTE DUTTON

What’s not to like about playing a little ball on a beautiful morning?

High school football is one of many arts of the possible. They don’t put the pads on till August. The High School League lets them play pitch-and-catch, and they make a game out of it, seven to a side. The linemen get to race each other pushing sleek blocking sleds, weighed down so they won’t go airborne, and they have tugs o’ war, just like it was field day, or a scouting camporee.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of what appears to have been a pit constructed about a half mile away, apparently in use some half century ago where, in an annual spring festival of madness, groups of students held tugs of war that ended when the less brawny group found itself dragged into this pit of mud. Fortunately, no skeletons have been discovered.

A local legend holds that an ancient football coach once became so annoyed with his charges that he commanded them to dive into this mud pit before practice. Alas, the ancients were dreadfully uncivilized.

June has been so cool that, grading on a curve, Tuesday qualified for warm with an afternoon forecast of hot. Be not lulled into a false sense of security. They don’t call it climate change for nothing.

The staff meteorologists of the land must constantly have a hook to pump up the ratings. Ooh, it’s so cool. Ooh, it’s getting hot. Ooh, it won’t stop raining. There could be flash floods (as opposed to the non-flashing variety), watermelon-sized hail, toxic Canadian smoke, a disturbance off the coast of Africa, deadly seaweed, cleanup in the Yellowstone River and classified documents leaking into the drinking water.

We’re all doomed. Might as well play a little catch.

All they needed was dinner to have dinner on the grounds. Playing organized silliness wasn’t enough to put 5,000 fannies in the grandstands, but a certain element of the local population would gladly watch a football spiral year ‘round. Plus, mass transit was in evidence as teams representing Laurens (two squads), Carolina, Mid-Carolina, Boiling Springs, Newberry, Hillcrest and Wade Hampton arrived to join two Clinton teams in controlled war games.

Everyone was in a good mood, from WSPA’s Pete Yanity, already shooting video of roughly everything that moved for potential preseason-preview usage, to the coaches and players themselves. The only mistake I made was trying to tell a joke that was too long to provide a punch line before the next play.

In spite of clever disguise, this was serious business. I’ve never known a high-school coach who didn’t take advantage of every opportunity to observe, analyze and try by every possible means to improve his team. It’s a lonely feeling to play the season’s first game and realize everything’s not quite ready.

Kids have to invest. There’s a world of difference between playing football and playing football to win. It’s roughly measured in what are known as standings. Playing football to win is much more fun than just playing it.

Even now, it requires a zeal. It requires a mindset that believes every action is a means to get better. A championship is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Wellington – I think he ran the Wing-T – allegedly said that the Battle of Waterloo was won “on the playing fields of Eton,” then a power in the soccer and rugby wars.

It could be that a crucial battle could be won on the track infield at Clinton High. Or at Laurens

’ stadium. Or wherever footballs are thrown.

Coaches never leave a drop of coffee in their cups.

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