The football coaches and football player parents pushing to clamorize the sport with lights and late-night crowds at Mountain View and Los Altos high schools will need a better excuse than promoting football. They need to emphasize what other activities might be advanced by lights (and better sound systems or other amenities). Meanwhile, congrats to the current football teams that beat their opponents this past week even without home field lights. Mountain View easily outscored Gunn of Palo Alto while Los Altos mauled Lynbrook of San Jose (near Cupertino). Sure, Gunn had been rated among the weakess teams in the 93-team Central Coast Section (CCS) and Lynbrook was rated by Maxpreps as the worst team in the entire CCS. But beating lousy teams must be more fun than being beaten to a pulp by good teams.

Can't live in a bubble of fear though. You'll never enjoy life that way. You'll just be some sad commenter, sitting alone at home telling everyone else why they should not be enjoying themselves.

I agree wholeheartedly with this viewpoint. We try to protect our children from all kinds of harm, real and imagined, yet let them put on plastic shells and bang their heads together on the football field. Fortunately, a la Fortuna, a bad "valve" precluded any football career for me. The most important earning asset for most people, especially in our area, are their brains. It is beyond me why our schools try so hard to impart knowledge and learning and then promote a sport that incontrovertibly impairs cognitive function.