Friday Night Mustangs

This is how old I am. I am, "my son went to his ten-year high school class reunion" old.

My son graduated in 2009.  Twitter was only a year old.

He used to post a lot on something called Facebook.  It would clog up our e-mail because back then, Facebook used to notify your e-mail address every time you posted or someone responded to you.

Previously, he had been on something called Myspace.

Myspace was a big deal, at least for a little while. But it was like The Blackberry before The iPhone came out. Something bigger and better came along and Myspace was history.

Sort of.  The tech magazine Livewire says that Myspace is still chugging along and (as of 2016) they still get 15 million monthly active visitors. It is the quietest 15 million active anything around because I never hear anyone mention Myspace at all.

People with good memories will remember that my son was on the football team. The Kennesaw Mountain Mustangs.  He was number 38 and was a running back. He gained during his high school football career six yards. He did it in one game. I still have a copy of the Marietta Daily Journal which lists his name in the statistics of the game. 

The Head Coach of the Mustangs at that time was Scott Jones. Scott built the team from the ground up. Kennesaw Mountain was a "new" school at the time. That is, the county built it and said, here go get yourself a football team.

So Scott had to go out and raise money because the county didn't buy anything for the sports teams. They didn't even have a rake.

Scott was really good at raising money.  The football team had to sell "coupons" for local restaurants.  You know, here's a coupon for a free coke with your burger type of stuff. Somehow, and I don't know how he got a wings coupon from the local Hooters one year. I took the coupons to work to sell. They sold out.

The problem was The Mustangs just had an okay record and never made the playoffs The high school down the street, Harrison, had a great record and made the playoffs

I'm not sure why Harrison was so good and we were not. It was just one of those things. Harrison had been around maybe ten years longer, so I guess they were more established.

What added to the problem was Kennesaw Mountain had a very successful marching band.

I know a little bit about marching bands because I lived across the street from Wheeler High School for ten years. Back in the sixties, the Wheeler Marching Band basically played "Hey There Georgie Girl" every fall.

By the time the seventies came, the Wheeler Marching Band had moved up to "MacArthur Park".  My sister in law, who was on the flag corps, said that once during practice for the Friday Night Half Time, the band director became irritated with the band.  He said,  "People, people. The cake is melting in the rain!"

By the time my son went to high school, the high school marching bands went from playing the day's hit songs to performance art.

Their first year, Kennesaw Mountain performed "Oh, The Places You Will Go!" at halftime. It was based on the Dr. Suess book everyone reads at graduations. I remember they had one student prancing around like the main character in the Dr. Suess book. I remember thinking I'm glad that wasn't my kid.

By the time my son's class made it to Friday nights, the band was playing selections from "Wicked".  I seem to remember the band winning a lot of awards and tournaments.  I also remember the band parents leaving after halftime.

The Mustangs were not bad. They had a fairly competitive team. Sure, they lost some games they probably should have/could have won. But every high school does that.

After my son graduated, Scott coached for a couple of more seasons. Then, one day, he was sacked. He ended up at North Paulding High School. He had some pretty good seasons over there..  He retired from teaching in 2017.

Considering my son was the twelfth-string running back, Scott treated my son well and he was always very nice to us. I really couldn't ask for anything more.

I still keep up with the Mustangs. They are having a tough year. They haven't won a game.

I looked up the records. The Mustangs have had only two winning seasons in their history. 2007 and 2008.  My son's junior and senior seasons.