The BigRich Sports Report

It’s a sensory overload. It could be 90 degrees in September or 10 below zero in November, but the one constant is the goosebumps. 
The smell of the freshly cut grass underneath a sun-fading evening. Heck, the grounds crew may have even left that grass just a bit on the taller side. Any competitive advantage, right? We won’t tell anyone. Make sure to pick your feet up. 
Cars parked in every direction around the field. If not for the bright Friday night lights, the hundreds of headlights would certainly do.
The sounds? Doesn’t matter if it’s Aurora’s best damn band in the land, the roar of the crowd that’s completely lined the field or that magical sound when those pads pop just right. If you’ve seen the now former HPC great Wyatt Urkoski play, you know that sound. 
In both Clarks and Hampton, the sun setting over the ready-to-be-picked corn is right out of a photo. Giltner’s stadium lights and fan base are literally on top of the playing surface. Aurora’s flashing LED lights for each touchdown never get tiresome. Austin Allen, Baylor Scheierman, Evan Pankoke, Brady Klute, Dayne Hinrichs, Alex Goracke, Keaton Van Housen and Dylan Soule -- every one of those guys, in part to their tremendous athletic success at Aurora, Hampton, Giltner and High Plains, made a name for themselves on Friday nights -- under the lights. 
Our wonderful weekly fall tradition is under fire, friendly fire oddly enough, from another one of this state’s highest passions.
It was announced last week that the Nebraska football team will host Illinois Sept. 20 for a primetime kick. Yes, that’s a Friday night. 
It’s the Big Ten opener for the Big Red and if everything goes to plan, will be the celebration of Nebraska’s 400th consecutive sellout. 
This will be the fifth time since 2017 that the Huskers will play on a Friday night, but this is different. This is the first time the Big Red will do it at home, not counting its post-Thanksgiving Black Friday rivalry with Iowa. 
I get it. I see the dollar signs. I don’t have to like it.
No day is sacred anymore. If football is your passion, you can find it on television every night – seven days a week. 
Sure, Nebraska gets the stage all to itself on this particular Friday, most of the country watching the Husker faithful celebrate what no college football fan base has ever accomplished before with the 400 sellouts. 
It will be a great game, sure, and I can’t wait to watch it. I’ll just be a bit behind the live audience. 
My heart belongs under a different set of Friday night lights. 
Part of it is selfish, too. This is Nebraska’s 400th consecutive sellout and I’ve traveled to many a Husker gameday, both as a fan and working member of the media. 
I want to be in Lincoln on this particular gameday as any other. I was in high school when Nebraska celebrated its 300th consecutive sellout and it was exactly that -- a celebration. I still have the next-day edition of the Omaha World-Herald, which was laid out in a 1962-type old school fashion look and feel, dating back to the start of the sellout streak.
I’m bummed out that I cannot be there in person to witness that. I’m bummed out that any of our high school players can’t be there for it, either. 
There was, of course, the immediate short-sided reaction of some to just say, “Well, move all the high school games to Thursday or Saturday.”
Doesn’t really work that way. Sure, we may see a few games move, but a vast majority of high school games will remain on that Friday. What about our other fall sports that are already playing on those days? 
Aurora will be on the road at Columbus Scotus that night, which is just another game in a gauntlet schedule for the Huskies. Giltner will travel to Deshler, High Plains will road trip to Nebraska Lutheran and Hampton has the biggest jaunt of them all to Pawnee City. 
Looks like either way, the BigRich Sports Report is logging some highway miles. 
I have no intel on whether or not any of our area teams will move these kickoffs. If they’re looking for my opinion, I don’t really want them to, either. 
What will happen, though, is 90,000 people will pack into Memorial Stadium that night for the Huskers’ 400th consecutive sellout.
Simultaneously, cars will park around much smaller football venues across Huskerland, watching their respective hometown team with the band roaring and the cheerleaders celebrating. The booster club pregame meals will be delicious and every PA announcer will provide scoring updates on the game you’re attending as well as the one in Lincoln, whether you asked for them or not. 
Why? Because there’s nothing like high school football. 
RICHARD RHODEN can be reached at sports@hamilton.net.