Today, 2014, high-school football fields have become quite the thing. Beautiful lush, manicured and blended turf with sub mixtures for proper drainage. Large built-in seating areas with press boxes high above. Some of the larger schools today even have "suites" just like colleges.
Our field was the next thing to playing out in someone's PASTURE. This was Laurel, Iowa in the 1960's. Our whole high-school had a little over eighty students period. We actually had eleven man football and as you could imagine most all the boys HAD to play.
Up until a few years prior to my going into high-school (late 1950's) the school played six man. And I do remember watching a few of those games when I was in junior high.
My story here is about our poor field. It pretty much was part of the school's baseball field. Primarily the out-field. The north end- zone was adjacent or close to the street that ran by it. The northeast corner of the end-zone came close to touching the school bus-barn. And, a lot of the end-zone was gravel for the bus barn.
The field ran south and most noticeably downhill. The south end-zone butted right up against an adjacent farmer's "hog lot." We had no bleacher's for even the home side. People just stood along the side-lines and cheered. There was a small bleacher set-up on the east-side which might have held a few fans. Very few!
Our football field was always the joke of the conference. Always running up hill or down hill. In one end-zone, if you fell down you could be cut up by rocks in the bus barn drive. In the south end-zone, if you didn't slow down while running into the end-zone you would have to consider jumping the fence and joining the hogs!!
That old field served us well while in high-school. As a sophomore, junior, and senior, we never lost a game there. Maybe the opposing team and fans were too busy laughing.
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