Chris Johnson: This is a game that we shouldn't love so much

Football season is just around the corner. College and pro players are in training camps, and a handful of high school coaches are getting ready to push kids to near death in the summer heat to supposedly make men out of them -- the kind of coaches who think you can shake off a concussion and "get back in there!"

I was a sportswriter for a long time, and there are more of those idiots prowling the sidelines than you would believe.

I once covered one of these high school coaches who made men out of boys in the summer heat until he finally made a dead man out of one of those boys and changed his ways. He kept a picture of the kid on his desk for the rest of his days. He wised up, and by the time he died was one of the most successful coaches ever.

Football is dangerous enough without coaches pushing kids in ways that are actually counter-productive to their development and to the team's success. The idea that you can tear down these kids in the summer heat to build them up is as asinine as it is dangerous.

Even when you take extreme heat and unwise coaches out of the equation, football is still an almost insane sport to play. I've seen too many kids carted off of football fields from middle school to the pros. I've even seen a high-school wide receiver come down awkwardly and breaking his leg in such horrific fashion that it protruded through the skin. And he still held onto the ball for a touchdown.

Yet, it's a game I love to watch. I wasn't good enough to play it more than a handful of junior varsity games, but if I'd have had an ounce of talent, I'd have been out there with some coach breathing down my neck trying to make a man out of me while some linebacker was trying to break my leg. It just sounds fun, doesn't it?!

Fortunately, watching the game is hardly as dangerous. Well, it was a little dangerous when I was going from one small town to another trying to find little stadiums by the lights in the sky because the school secretary gave me bad directions and there were no GPS devices or cell phones in the car. Then I'd finally get to some old wooden press box that literally swayed in the wind and would climb up a rickety ladder only to have some fellow scream "No press in the press box!" Those kinds of guys were usually the first to complain that their team didn't get good coverage and that I focused too heavily on the negative aspects of their 65-0 loss.

But I absolutely love this brutal game. I love the sounds of high school marching bands playing fight songs. I love the crunch of pads of opposing players colliding when you're on the sideline and close enough to be hit with sweat. I love the booming intro music from the TV when my Georgia Bulldogs are about to hit the field against Florida, Auburn, Alabama or Georgia Tech. I love the "Monday Night Football" theme song. And I love the ding of the microwave telling me that some incredibly unhealthy food is ready to plop down in front of me for the next three hours.

I have darn near gone into sports withdrawal the past couple of months since the Braves decided to coast for the next couple of years until they can become the Northwest Atlanta Braves and I gave up on them. I haven't seen America's pastime of baseball for more than a few minutes this entire year. And it's been a couple of months since my Hawks collapsed in the NBA Playoffs.

So, while I feel terribly guilty about being a die-hard football fan, I don't feel guilty enough to regret saying, "Are you ready for some football?!"

Connect with Chris Johnson at Facebook.com/KudzuKidWriting.

This story was originally published August 8, 2015 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Chris Johnson: This is a game that we shouldn't love so much ."