“Well there’s a feelin’ in the air, just like a Friday afternoon,” begins the lyrics to the Better Than Ezra ballad titled This Time of Year.

The faint, faint, faintest feeling of possible lower temperatures, or what passes for autumn in Southwest Mississippi, has us all feeling pulled in anticipation towards the start of high school football tomorrow.

Ezra continues, “well there’s a football in the air, across a leaf blown field.”

And that’s what we all know, that in this part of the world, this time of year means footballs in the air and on the ground via high school games under Friday Night Lights.

Part of covering new counties and new schools, as I now am, is making connections with new coaches.

I was at South Pike one day this week and Head Coach Tyrone Varnado asked me if I’d like to address his team following practice.

As a former coach myself, it was an honor.

I gave them a quick word of encouragement and described to the team how many cars were parked up and down East Monticello Street in 2002 when Brookhaven High beat South Pike 2-0 in a memorable second round playoff matchup.

Told them that growing up where and when I did, the legacy of South Pike football carried heavy weight and looking at the talent collected there today, it feels like that’s still true.

Told them how excited I am to cover Pike County for Y’all Sports.

It’s easy to talk about things you’re passionate about.

The next day I was talking with McComb High Offensive Coordinator Marquis McFarland.

We were waiting to speak with his head coach, Alden Foster. Just like Varnado the day before, I enjoyed hearing Foster give his teams notes on their conduct and attitude prior to concluding practice.

He heard of two teammates that had been squabbling and made the team form a circle. He let the young men go through a spirited, but controlled version of an Oklahoma Drill.

Afterwards, he had the players give each other a handshake and a hug.

He reminded his guys of the brotherhood that comes from being teammates and warned that any more friction would cost you a spot on the team.

He warned that he didn’t want to hear any profane language in practice either.

He saved his best for last, telling anyone with a “C” on their report card to come back over after getting changed, as they’d be helping the coaches paint the field.

That made me smile and you could see in the eyes of his players that they knew he meant it.

Painting the field, that can be a labor of love or loathing for football coaches this time of year.

That phrase, labor of love, got stuck in my head this week when I was thinking about the start of high school football.

I was talking to my buddy Scott Leggett on the sideline of a jamboree game at Loyd Star as the Hornets hosted North Pike.

We agreed that the action on the field had a good intensity, it felt just like a warmup for the regular season.

I looked up and saw longtime Loyd Star radio voices Greg Russell and Terry Britt, up in the bleachers. It’s not a real game for the Hornets if those guys aren’t on the radio.

It’s got to be a labor of love for all the radio guys that cover high school football in our area. I truly appreciate the radio teams that follow our schools. I listen to every one of them, sometimes while watching another game live.

They are all businessmen and dads and granddads and people who serve in a lot of other ways in a lot of other places, but when the games get cranked up, they put all that aside to shine the light on high school athletics.

The folks on the chain crew, that job is a labor of love for them too. Many pride themselves on doing the job right and never being corrected by an official.

It should be a labor of love for anyone trying to be a referee in the world today. Shout out to the old-timers that have been calling games since I had a head full of hair and an equal tip of the hat to the young guys that are just getting into it.

We must have officials.

Louisiana is dealing with a shortage right now. Lots of programs will play on Thursday already in the early season because they need to split the available refs over two nights.

It’s a labor of love for the cheer coaches, the band directors, and the parents working in the concession stand to support the soccer team or the FFA or the Beta Club.

It’s a labor of love for me.

The first month of Y’all Sports has flown by.

I’ve had so much fun and there is a lot of new stuff coming.

When you watch a football film from a camera positioned high behind the end zone, you call that the All-22 film of the game, as you get a clear view of everyone on the field.

When the idea for Y’all Sports got nailed down in my head, my first goal was to create a pre-season football team for the five counties I’m covering.

I’ve never wanted to write about a pre-season football team in all the years I’ve been covering high school sports, but that all of a sudden changed.

I wanted Y’all Sports to be a thing so I could then create the inaugural Y’all 22.

The Y’all 22 will be published later this afternoon. It’ll have stories with bios on this site and pictures that can be shared via Facebook and then later, a video of each player announcing himself.

This is 22 players of note from Copiah, Franklin, Lawrence, Lincoln, and Pike Counties, with the team split between offense and defense.

Could I pop off 10 more names of guys that could easily be on this list?

Yes.

This is the first of what I hope to be many years of selecting a Y’all 22 team.

I hope you read it, and I hope some proud moms share it, because that’s what this site is for.

A huge amount of gratitude goes to Toyota of Brookhaven for being the presenting sponsor of The Y’all 22.

Back to my conversation with Coach McFarland at McComb. I explained who I am, and we made some connections through mutual friends.

It feels like everyone you meet knows Corey McLaurin, right?

I told him I’d seen McComb High play last year at Brookhaven High in a great game and how excited I am thinking about being in Pike County on Halloween to see the Green and Gold Super Bowl between the Tigers and their rivals from South Pike.

I mentioned how I’d watched and even coached in some great games between Brookhaven High and McComb in basketball.

“If my friends and I heard about a good player, we’d get in the car and go watch them,” I said. “Did it for Jackie Butler here and Al Jefferson in Prentiss. I’ve just always been someone who loved high school sports.”

He replied with a grin, “I was the same way, man.”

I was smiling too, because that’s how high school athletics makes me feel and I’ve never had a season I’m looking forwards to more than this one.

Bring on the Friday Night Lights.

See Y’all on the sidelines.

Cliff Furr loves writing about high school sports and to do more of that, he created Y’all Sports. If you’d like to partner with Y’all Sports, email him at cliff@yallsportsms.com.