The crisscrossing scars on my right knee tingle as I watch my son walk out onto a football field wearing full pads for the first time. It’s just a scrimmage.  But wasn’t it “just a scrimmage” in 8th grade when I snapped my thumb?

Fall is here.  Time again to fill young brains with facts and figures, then concuss them.

Which is to say that I feel a bit ambivalent about the beginning of school, specifically the attendant start of school sports. Ambivalent? You snort derisively. How could a guy that budgets every minute of his free time to ferrying his three kids to various practices and games be ambivalent?

Easy.

Yes, I sold my soul to club soccer (yet still owe them $200 a month somehow), but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could renegotiate.  And fall is the time to do it. Didn’t the summer teach us the value of free time, unstructured play and downtime? Then why are my kids having hoagies in the backseat of the minivan, dripping mustard on the Global Studies homework en route to the Soccer Compound on the back side of suburban nowhere?

Summer, it’s time to beef up the curriculum. Your scores are coming in below standards.

Now it is fall.  In Texas.  So there is a very specific reckoning for our family as we return to school this year.  Football has lumbered our lives like a nose tackle at a garden party. Soccer, like summer, has tried to teach us lessons: that competitive sports can be life sports, that sports talk can be a global conversation, but like summer, soccer is no match for fall and her brand of ball.

Fortunately for me, my son is a bit ambiguous the return of school and the appearance of football, too.  He’s listened to me rant about the dangers of the game, describe the knee reconstructions, recount injury statistics (I know, I know, soccer is bad, too.), but he’s also been watching me. And I do watch football. He’s also been listening to coaches. They said it would be fun, and I conceded that was indeed true.

So for my son (and for me) the return to school means football for the first time. It makes this fall seem exciting and a little dangerous, with raised stakes somehow, more grown up in both a good and a bad way. Football is liminal.  So is being 12, I guess.

My son takes his stance.  I hold my breath.

[Originally posted as part of VolunteerSpot's Views on Back to School Series. VolunteerSpot's free online sign up sheets save time, eliminate reply-all email, and make it easy for more parents to get involved at school. Register at VolunteerSpot before October 1st, 2010 using promotion code "TeachersSave" for a chance to win $100 in free classroom supplies for the teacher of your choice from ClassWish.]