The curse began when I was a child, it has only continued to get stronger since.

In 1989 the Roosevelt Eagles made it to the Texas State Playoffs in football. The next year, when I started attending Roosevelt Schools as a bright eyed kindergarten-er, their twenty year losing streak began. Then came high school in the same school system; on homecoming night as  I and the rest of the homecoming court sat patiently watching the carnage of the eagle football team on the field, I knew something wasn't quite right.

 Then came college. Same thing. No wins.

Now, as I coach the Slaton High School Cheerleaders, I can't help but feel that last weeks 63-13 loss was my fault. I can't let this be known to my cheerleading squad though because they will then feel that all of their yelling, toe-touching, chanting and cartwheeling will be done in significant vain because, if there is anyone around who still has faith in the Slaton Tigers, it is their cheerleaders.

Football programs, as in life, have their good years and their bad. I just haven't been lucky enough to be a part of a good year just yet. I came close last year when the Texas Tech Red Raiders dominated the Big 12 South, but that was merely out of the shear coincidence that I just so happened to be in Lubbock, home of the Red Raiders, most Saturdays because it is the nearest city with a Sam's Club.

But how do I explain this to seventeen hopeful girls who have only four years to develop their high school legacies into what will surely become interesting topic pieces for first date chatter, at sorority mixers and fodder on Facebook; that high school, whether we like to admit it or not, will continue to follow us till our very demise? Now I'm sounding like a Slatonite or, at the very least, Chad Carpenter (Slaton Tiger Quarterback 1989).

Author Kirk Read once said, "high school doesn't end after graduation; it just scatters the participants." Now, ten years out of high school, I can't help but think that this may be true. As a society, we have a sort of perverted obsession with high school and, for many of us, our, "glory days."

Even Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen once tuned out the lyrics, "Now I think I'm going to drink till I get my fill and I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it but I probably will. Trying to recapture a little of the glory of, boring stories of glory days."

As my ten year reunion approaches and I continue to walk the high school hallways, I often think back to those times in my life that I thought would never end. A time when the age of thirty was a significant milestone and we would all be wearing our grown up gear proudly, but every once and a while I still feel that same tinge of high school insecurity as the smell of tator tots linger in the air while we practice in the high school cafeteria. Forcing me to remember myself as my young self and thinking if I have changed, any? I hoped the memories and the times would have faded away during my drunken college haze. No. I hoped I would have shed those juvenile thoughts during pitch meetings. No. I tried my hardest to sleep away the nights thinking of martinis or beer, a nice glass of wine or a fine cigar. No. Just old memories from those old hallways that continue to remind me of dungeons before waking each morning and walking into Slaton High School reliving it all again.

Now, as angsty as I may sound, I can't truly complain because my high school experience wasn't nearly as severe as those I have read about or even watch on Gossip Girl. They were good times, but there is no sense in being anchored down by the illuminating glow of a megaphone against stadium lights.

I thought about all of this as I walked into the glass doors of the well lit brick high school on Monday night to begin our cheer practice for a team that needs more than a miracle to feel the glory of victory. I thought I was going to face a group of sad droopy eyed cheerleaders, who only goal in their high school career is to cheer their team onto victory and have failed at that.

Instead, I found the opposite.

"So what are we going to do for the pep-rally this week?" One of the girls asked, as excited as a Miss Teen America at a tiara fitting.  "We've got to keep our spirits up," she said as she gathered her team and they then went into the cheer they had planned for this Friday.

I watched, made suggestions and added stunts because as they know from what I continue to teach,  they must keep cheering. They must hold their heads up high, keep believing and keep on cheering for their hometown team because, no matter what, they only get one chance at high school and one chance to rise above failing seasons.

Now, I must get on the road to get to tonight's game at Roosevelt, my Alma Mater, who is playing the school I presently work at the Slaton Tigers. Now someone must win, whether it be my past school or my present school, this curse has to be broken. For tonight... I'm betting on my present.