America Needs Its Boys to Play Football
September 4, 2026
Fall is here, football is back, and America's boys need to play it and be shaped by it.
As the son of a football coach, I'm admittedly biased. As a dad who has spent the past month driving a high-school freshman to two-a-day, often 100-degree practices, I'm deliriously invested. But you don't have to be a football fanatic to grasp that today, for 12- to 18-year-old boys, this sport has never been more important. While controversy surrounds the embarrassingly blurry line between college football and the National Football League, our culture needs to take a moment to commend and steward the glorious tradition of high-school football.
