Chris Peterson Column: Fair week marks the beginning of the end

The fair is here. Of course, everyone loves the fair and why wouldn’t they? Great food, fun rides, fun events, not to mention the smell of delicious fried food or the sounds of carnies calling — what’s not to love?

Yet, I can remember a specific time when the fair brought about a feeling of dread inside me; dread because I knew football season was coming and my summer was about to be over.

That time specifically was when I was in high school and took part in two-a-day football practices. You see, I have always loved football, but in general, I have always hated practice and in particular, two-a-days.

I don’t know if other players felt this way too, although after talking to my buddies over the years, I think many would agree. Football practice is hard, especially if you’re an offensive lineman. Maybe two-a-days aren’t as tough for quarterbacks and receivers. In fact, I know they aren’t, because I remember watching them glide through their drills with relative ease.

When practice starts, seemingly all they do is throw and catch passes. Lineman, on the other hand, start out practice pushing a sled that weighs a ton, with coaches standing on it that also feel like a ton. You hit and block full speed and throughout the day. Receivers run routes, lineman bust each other’s heads.

It was either the sled or combo drills under a metal shoot that would clothesline you if you got too high in your stance. This was more than 10 years ago and my first and only experience in two-a-days came under legendary Blue Pony football coach Troy Purcell.

Now, I don’t know precisely what the rules are and if there are any in terms of hours per practice, but if there was, I bet Purcell pushed them to the limit. And while this may be an exaggeration, similar to old men saying they walked uphill both ways to school, I can remember practicing and lifting weights for a good four to five hours every morning, only to come back for another 3.5 hour practice that night.

Truthfully, the only time I could move was practice, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Why couldn’t I catch or run or do anything other than get in the way and even at that, I was only mildly successful.

That was my freshman year and that’s also when I realized that for me, the fair was the official, unofficial end of my summer.

It made one of my favorite things strangely depressing. The joy of riding the zipper, eating a pronto pup or devouring a scone all came with the caveat that with each bite or each ride, the end of summer was creeping closer and soon enough I’d be back, pushing that sled.

As time went on, that dread eventually went away, but the feeling that the summer winds down after fair week never did. And now, as a sportswriter, the fair really does mean that football season and fall sports are coming.

There are certainly other big sporting events including the Great Northern Ram Pro Rode.

The junior rodeo on Wednesday night and the demolition derby Saturday night is always a classic one-of-a-kind event here in Havre. That doesn’t even include the Havre North Stars American Legion baseball team, which head to Great Falls for the Northern A District tournament starting Thursday.

So it’s a busy time in sports, but it’s also largely the end for the summer sports calendar. Come August, which is now less than two weeks away, it’s all about the pigskin, golf, volleyball and cross country.

With fall sports right around the corner, I sometimes wonder, now, when I am walking the grounds at the Great Northern Fair, if today’s high school athletes feel the same sense of foreboding I once did.

The fair has many great things and while the food is out of this world, it’s not the best for getting in shape or being a finely-tuned athlete. So for me, once the fair was over, it was time to get in shape and prepare for football, something I have always loved with all my heart and two-a-days, something I knew was necessary, but also hated with every fiber of my being.

The fair still signifies the beginning of the end for sports in the summer, but thankfully, it no longer means pushing a sled or marathon two-a-day sessions. That’s why, nowadays, I can actually enjoy my pronto pups in peace.