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I'm Shay! I’m a cookbook author, lifestyle blogger, travel agency owner, wife and mama who loves making every day special for my family.

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Mix & Match Mama

All things Fall!, Kensington, Smith ·

Friday Night Lights


Happy FRIDAY, friends!

Yesterday, I shared an early edition of my favorite things this week because today, I’m talking all about…

I have had SO MANY questions in my DMs over the last few weeks that I decided it was high time for a post about Texas high school football.

I have been writing these questions down so that hopefully, I don’t miss a one (but should I, please feel free to ask in the comment section).

There is an allure to Texas high school football.  A lot of that is due to…

…some famous movies about the sport set in the Lone Star state…and part of it is due to…

…some famous TV shows too.

Regardless of how Hollywood portrays it, Friday Night Lights is a real thing down here and so many of you have questions.

As a born and raised Texan, I thought I’d take a minute…

…and share the whys/hows/details of what it looks like for our family. 😉

Let’s start with this question…

#1: WHY ARE YOUR STADIUMS SO BIG?

If you haven’t heard, everything is bigger and better in Texas.

We like big hair, big highways, big bows, big truck stops (I’m talking to you, Buc-ees), big grocery stores (and you, HEB), and occasionally…

…big high school football stadiums.

McKinney has three different high schools (McKinney High, McKinney North High, and McKinney Boyd High) which all three share this one stadium.  This $70 million stadium opened in August 2018 and at the time, it was the largest in the country.  Coincidentally, the town next to us, Allen, had a $60 million stadium and was bumped to the #2 most expensive stadium.  Over the last few years, several other schools have built stadiums that are even more expensive in Texas.

While our town’s stadium is HUGE and certainly impressive, not all stadiums are this way.

For instance…

…Smith’s high school, Lovejoy High, plays in their very normal (very Friday Night Lights TV show looking) stadium located right behind the actual high school.  It’s certainly more common to watch games in stadiums this size versus the mega-sized ones.

#2: WHY DO YOU SOMETIMES PLAY ON THURSDAYS INSTEAD OF FRIDAYS?

Like I mentioned above, McKinney has one stadium on a neutral site that three different schools share.  The town I grew up in had the exact same situation (three high schools, one shared stadium).  When you have more schools than stadiums that means each week one team plays at home on Friday night and then one team will be the “away” team somewhere else and then that third team gets to be “home” on Thursday.

Smith’s school district only has one high school which means they can always be “home” on a Friday night, but if they’re playing at a location where the opponent has multiple schools in their district, they might have to play them on a Thursday night…

…which is what we did last week when Lovejoy played against a school from Frisco, TX (which has 12 different high schools, can you imagine those logistics?!).

#3: HOW DO YOU AND ANDREW DECIDE WHICH FOOTBALL GAMES TO GO TO EACH WEEK?

Well thanks to the answer from Question #2, sometimes, it’s easy and they play on different nights, so we get to go to both.  Last week was one of those weeks.  Smith played on Thursday…

…while Kensington’s school played on Friday (both were the “away” teams).

We discussed it as a family and decided that since the cheer season is a full year and football season is only 11 games (excluding any playoff games), if they both play at the same time on the same night, Andrew and I will go watch Smith play football.  As of now, football is Smith’s only sport, so if we don’t go to those games, we miss “his thing” for the whole year.  Meanwhile, Kensington has not just football games for cheer, she has pep rallies, competitions, clinic performances, parades, basketball games, and more all year long.

This means that Andrew and I won’t be attending any Lovejoy pep rallies right now because…

…we go watch Kensington cheer at her pep rallies instead.

For the second year in a row, both high schools have homecoming the very same week (what are the odds?!) which means that…

…we’ll pick all the HOCO fun at Boyd over the HOCO fun at Lovejoy since the cheerleaders are focal points at these events.  Like the annual parade…

…and homecoming pep rallies.

#4: WHAT DO KENSINGTON AND SMITH EAT BEFORE THE GAMES?  

At Kensington’s school, if the cheerleaders are heading to an away game, parents can order a meal for their cheerleader.  The booster club has different vendors they use for these meals.  Let’s just say it’s Chick-fil-a, if that’s the vendor for the week, the parents can pre-order and pay for their daughter’s meal and then it’s ready for them to enjoy on the bus on the way to the game.  If the game is at home, the cheerleaders have time between school and kickoff to eat dinner at home before the game.  At Smith’s school, the football players are fed by the booster club before each game.

#5: DO YOUR KIDS BUS TO THE GAMES?

They both always bus to away games.  For home games, they either stay after school until kickoff (Smith) or drive themselves there (Kensington).

#6: HOW ARE TEAMS DECIDED?  FRESHMAN, JV, VARSITY, ETC.

That depends on the coaches.  I see it done differently at every school for both cheer and football.  Some coaches are traditional and keep all freshman on the freshman teams, all sophomores on the JV team, and then all juniors and seniors on varsity.  Or some coaches place kids where their talents are a better fit while others are placing kids to fill gaps and holes.  You can’t toggle back and forth and play both each week.  Texas schools are governed by the UIL which specifically state things like one boy can’t play both JV and varsity every week.  There are a lot of rules those coaches have to learn.

#7: WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH THE MUMS?

Homecoming mums are INSANE.  I thought they were crazy big and ridiculous 25 years ago when I was in high school, but they’re downright comical now.  It’s a crazy Texas tradition that, despite a lifetime of living here, I still can’t quite grow to appreciate.

#8: DO YOU NEED TICKETS TO THESE GAMES?  IS SEATING ASSIGNED? 

Yes!  At both of my kids’ schools they have both general admission seating and season pass seating (along with student seating too).  Since Smith’s stadium is so small, the assigned seating is taken pretty seriously as we’re all crammed tight in that space.  Since McKinney has such a huge stadium, while we have assigned seats with our season tickets, there is so much space that it’s easy to spread out.

#9: CAN YOU BRING IN NOISE MAKERS?

That depends on the stadium.  Some will let you and others will not.

#10: IS IT NORMAL TO TRAVEL SO FAR AWAY TO GAMES?

No way!  Lovejoy’s previous head football coach had arranged for them to play Lubbock Cooper two years in a row (once at home and then once in Lubbock) which is a situation our current coach inherited.  It is certainly not normal to go that far for one game.

#11: WHY DO THEY GO TO DIFFERENT SCHOOLS?

I’ve answered this question before, but the honest answer that different kids have different needs.  Kensington has always been super happy at her schools here in McKinney.  She’s found her place, her friends, her classes and extracurricular activities.  She is a happy McKinney camper.  Smith was looking for something else.  By the end of fifth grade, we knew he wasn’t super loving his school experience.  He had great friends, but it just wasn’t the right fit.  By the end of 8th grade, we for sure knew we needed to look elsewhere.  We looked at a variety of options before making the move to Lovejoy.

A few things happened last year with that move…for starters, he LOVED his new school. He loved how small it was, he loved that all of the classes offered were considered “advanced”, he loved that it leaned more “country”/small town-ish (he bought cowboy boots the first month he was there!), and the more he loved where he was, the more we realized Mades did not.  We moved Mades to a different school last October because we saw through Smith how the right school can really positively affect the kiddo. We moved her to her new school (she’s so happy!) and then while visiting Lovejoy often last year to support Smith, Ashby fell in love with that space too which is why this year, she moved.  Everyone seems really really happy where they are right now which is all this mama needs.

So, there’s a little look at Texas high school football just in time for Friday Night Lights!

Guess what I’ll be doing tonight?

Yup, yup!

Go Broncos and Go Leopards!  It’s football night in Texas 🙂 .

Have a great weekend, friends.  I would love to hear about high school football where YOU live.

I’ll see you back here TOMORROW for our Saturday post! xx

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Comments

  3. Lindi says

    Football isn’t really a thing here. 🤷‍♀️ We live not far from the Metro DC area. Sure people play it, but it’s just not a big deal. In fact, here, flag football is picking up in popularity quite a bit. My husband and I are not fans of tackle football for the injury/concussion risk. We don’t see it as worth it. Sundays people watch the Commanders. Lol. We are definitely not Texas.

  4. Rita says

    My son (23) and I freak out when we see the crowds at college football (Aussie here), found this fascinating reading about high school football. Our high school football is totally different, from memory the games are played during the week, in the day. If you work (which I do) you don’t get to see it. I think some high schools the games are on the weekends.

  5. Tina says

    It’s always interesting to see how in different parts of the US, some things are the same and some things are different. Do very many parents attend pep rallies? I hadn’t heard of that before. Here it’s a student thing. We had a cheerleader and one in color guard. I think they would have been mortified if parents attended a pep rally. We went to all the games and competitions though. As a working mom, it was hard enough to take time off for the soccer games and tennis matches that were in the afternoon. I can’t imagine adding to that. You are so blessed to be able to flex your work time. Some careers don’t have the flexibility. It’s a struggle to be a good mom and employee. I hope both kids have a great season and you are able to enjoy it all.

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      Yes! There is a parent section, and it’s always so full that it spills over to “standing room only”. We even turn in our names in advance the week of so that they can try and get a head count.

  8. Dana P says

    Love it! So nostalgic for me. I was a cheerleader in high school and am so far removed from that now since I live in Europe and “pom pom girls” don’t really exist here. 🙂 It’s fun to see that so many of those things are the same!

    Here in France, sports are completely separate from school and mostly just for fun. While I do love the high athletic levels of American high school sports, I also appreciate just doing some sports for the fun and character-building aspect of it that we see over here. My husband was a pretty hard-core high school athlete and his body pays for that every day. But I do think they had a huge influence on his overall perseverance and ability to push through hard things. I would love to go to a good football game though!

  9. Hallie says

    Ok I LOVED this post. Thanks for the insight, it’s definitely so interesting to see how it is different state by state! I am in Michigan and football is big but not as big as Texas!

  10. Lisa N says

    I think y’all have planned your team sport support perfectly! And though they may not like it, your readers are so invested in your kids and I for one would love to see an “All about _______” on each one like you used to do, as they have all grown into such well rounded individuals with different interest.

  11. Melissa Terry says

    Football is one of my favorite things about living here so I loved reading all of your tidbits. Happy Friday Night to you and your crew!

  12. Sarah DeWald says

    As someone from a Buffalo suburb where high school football was just something we did on a Saturday morning, it’s kind of unfathomable how GIANT Texas football is! But now in my teeny tiny PA town, Friday night football is a whole thing. Like moving trick-or-treat to another night for playoffs!

  13. Sara says

    Genuine question: Do you know what the point of them building such massive stadiums is when they are so empty? There are barely people in the stands, certainly on one side. Is it really just trying to outdo other schools even though there are not nearly enough fans to fill it? I can see a state tournament having more but then aren’t those done in the pro or college stadiums?

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      Take my answer with a grain of salt, but it’s my understanding that they end up generating a ton of revenue for the district when other people rent them out during the year. McKinney will host a variety of other sporting events (outside of high school), and that’s where the “real” money is made for the district.

  15. Kara McKinley says

    Our set up in Florida is very similar. My son plays QB and his routine is very intense. He works out/trains daily from 8-10:40am, then goes to class, practice Mon-Thurs 4pm-6pm, Prayer breakfast on game days at 7:30am, and then pep rally at school. Whew! Our booster club also feeds them a pregame and post game meals. Football season is the BEST! Hope they’re both having a wonderful season!

  16. Krista says

    Loved this peek into TX football! Watching my son play football on Friday nights are some of my most favorite memories!!

  17. Kerry says

    Thanks for this post! So interesting to learn a bit more about TX football. We live in a tiny town (1,800 ppl) in the mountains of Colorado, so our football scene is very different. Our school district is a one building PK-12 school with 400 kids in it (less my HS graduating class when I was in school!) which means we play 8-Man football – it’s a whole other world up here from the bright lights of TX 😂

  18. Kristin says

    I miss high school football games, but mostly because our kids were in marching band! Our son’s wife grew up outside of Dallas, and we couldn’t believe it when she showed us mums!! We were super glad that the 9 years she’s been out of TX changed her expectations for their wedding last fall!! Thanks for the fun football explainer!

  19. Rebecca says

    FNL is huge in my part of the south, too!! (I think everywhere in the south!?) I LOVE IT!! Altho our stadiums are not nearly that big…but we only share them with the feeder middle school, not other schools. Parents do not attend pep rallies here at all…it would be fun to be able to do that!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      Every “club” has a booster club. A club can any athletic group (football, cheer, tennis, etc), any performing arts group (band, theater, choir, etc) and then a variety of other “clubs”. The booster club is made up of parents of those students who pay annual “dues” and then also fundraise for the money to pay for all of the club’s “things”. The district gives some money, but not nearly enough for “all the things”. So, for example, we are members of Ashby’s cross country booster club, Smith’s football booster club and Kensington’s cheer booster club.

      • Heather Green says

        I would love to hear about any successful fundraising ideas you have. Especially with football booster. I’m helping my sister take that over next year and besides the traditional business sponsorships, looking for some fresh ideas! Thanks for sharing Shay!

  21. Elizabeth B says

    Love this post! Friday night lights in Georgia are a big deal, too! In the Atlanta area, there are huge schools and stadiums, but in my corner of the state, most are smaller but still full of tradition and fun. Funny to think I actually miss the craziness that consumed our lives just a few years ago. Good luck to all your teams this season!

  23. SS says

    Shay… this is so much fun!! Thank the kiddos for allowing us to hear about it.
    We had a sports trainer when I was a Sr that was from Houston, she came up here to get her master’s at a local college. Since I was in 3 sports she was my “bestie” LOL!!! My next spring break a friend of mine and I went to visit her. HOLY SMOKES!!! Her school was HUGE 2 stories!!!! We have a tiny school compared to hers. She told us don’t get caught in the halls between classes. She also taught a student sports medicine class at the school. Her sports medicine room was unreal. The football team having “weight lifting” class in April. It was just crazy. To see those stadiums, your football team would probably laugh at some of them around us!!! But we enjoy football.
    Happy Friday Night Lights!!!

  24. Kay says

    I love this and found it so interesting. My son played football freshman year of high school and let me tell you, it’s a whole different experience here outside Boston. I would say (and I understand) a lot of parents in our area are just kind of afraid of football and I know a lot won’t let their kids play. So!, our team is tiny, always loses, and the kids don’t always show up for practice. We had to borrow a lot of Varsity players at times for JV as they were just so short on numbers! Anyway, I love that it’s such a fun, celebratory well attended event in TX! I think it must be a great way to be a part of a huge community every week. Good luck to your teams!

  25. Allys says

    I love football Friday! It’s not quite the same in Iowa as it is in Texas (for one, our school is way smaller), but there is nothing quite like watching all the students, whether it’s the football players, cheerleaders or the band, under the lights and being supported by the community.

  26. Amy J says

    Texas High School 6A band mom here! 260 kid band. The bands are very intense too! My son began daily all day practices starting the first week of July. They even practice on Saturdays. They perform on FNL, Saturday competitions and community events. He gets dropped off at school on Fridays at 7:30 and we typically don’t pick him up until 11:00pm. During the school week, he practices 3X week for 3 hours each practice plus his daily band class. It takes 2 18-wheelers and 6 buses to get them and their instruments to the events. It’s a very busy parenting season for us!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      YES!!!!!! I have said this for years and years and years, NO ONE practices more than band students! Those kids are ALWAYS up at school practicing! It always shows though because I’ve yet to see a marching performance at half that wasn’t super impressive.

    • Jennibell says

      That is INSANE – in a good way!!! Love that so much $$$, time, and effort is poured into these kiddos too 🙂 Best it is I,pressive to see them rolling down the road 🙂

  27. Alison says

    Thank you for the first hand explanation! It’s so interesting to learn more about what football means in Texas. We love it up here in MN, but it’s obviously a different experience. My son is now in college but I would love to visit a Friday Night Lights down there sometime just to experience it.

  28. Allison says

    Great post!! I am SO with you on the mums. I grew up in Texas and to this day, they’re just….. odd. It’s odd to strap some GIGANTIC ribbons and bows (that cost a ridiculous amount of money) to your neck. When I see pictures of girls with their mums on it just looks odd and uncomfortable. Oh well!!

    • Sara Neville says

      Born and raised TX and I still find it so incredibly odd!?!? When I was in HS (early 90’s), you rarely saw people do mums at our school but now they do them for sure. These poor girls probably have neck pain after wearing that thing all day/night!!

  30. Kristen says

    Crazy to see how big football is in TX! Before this blog I have never heard of parents attending a pep rally or the whole mum thing!
    Do you ever worry about concussions? I work in a high school and we have so many football players that end up w/ concussions each season.

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      I am not a worrier by nature. My brother was very prone to concussions and Andrew has had them as well. So far, so good with Smith. It’s something I think about…but I try not to worry.

  32. Jenny N says

    I was born and raised in Texas and there is nothing better than Friday Night Lights! I was on the high school drill team and loved Friday night football. My daughter was on the high school drill team and we had season tickets for the games even after she graduated. My kids high school is one with a HUGE stadium. We often have pro football players from the Houston Texans show up for the high school games and stand on the sidelines watching the game. It is just such a fun atmosphere!

    My days of having kids involved are over as mine are grown and married. Enjoy it all!! It truly goes by in a BLINK!

  34. Susan Fitzpatrick says

    When I was in high school in San Antonio (a long time ago 😂) we always had mums with real flowers. I remember by the end of the day everyone started smelling like dead flowers! 😂 My kids went to my high school and mums were made with fake flowers then. They were so much lighter and no smell!

  35. Becky G says

    I had to google homecoming mums! That isn’t a thing in Michigan. Our Friday night lights are not like Texas but we do enjoy us some high school football. And as a mom of a high school baseball player, I so much appreciate the Boosters feeding the team before the game.

  36. Allena says

    Cracked up at the pictures you posted for examples of Texas football – Friday Night Lights was filmed around my hometown (they based the uniforms off our school/filmed in our stadium/used game footage) and Varsity Blues was filmed where I live now ha. So definitely immersed in Texas football myself. My dad was also a 5A HS football coach my entire childhood! Our kids are at a K-12 charter school now that doesn’t offer football so it’s a bit of a weird experience – homecoming is for basketball, what???

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      That’s so fun!!! Varsity Blues came out my junior year in high school and I vividly remember going to see it with my friends. It felt VERY much like what we were living at that moment.

      • Erin says

        I grew up in the Midwest and my brother and I went to different high schools too! Depending on zoning my middle school fed into two different high schools, so it was super common to just pick whatever high school you wanted based on where your friends were going. Ultimately he picked the high school with the baseball coach he liked the best!

  38. Julie says

    The east coast is sooooo different! Are your kids able to move schools because they go to private school? For instance, there are some towns that allow kids from another school to go to their public school but not all and it’s usually a lottery. So for the most part we couldn’t just decide to send out kids to another towns public school!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      My big three go to public school and Mades is in private school. Some districts allow for out of district transfers (but certainly not all of them), so that’s how my two middles attend their schools.

  39. jenni templeman says

    Is it hard to switch school districts? I’m
    In Maryland the school districts are run by counties (over 100 elementary schools) and schools are usually by geographic region but it’s super hard to transfer within the district. You have to apply for a transfer and then have to prove a hardship for your designated home school.

    So glad all your kids are happy!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      If the district allows for out of district transfers (it varies by districts which are all city run), you can apply. They make it pretty simple.

  40. Therese says

    I’m jealous of your Texas rule about not double dipping JV and Varsity. My 10th grader plays in JV football games on Monday nights and Varsity games on Friday nights. It’s exhausting for all of us!

  41. Ellen says

    That was very interesting! I live in the Northeast, and in our town, football isn’t that big a deal. The school’s best sport seems to be soccer, and they’ve struggled to consistently recruit enough kids for a full varsity and JV football team.

    My kids play other sports, and I will say that I’m in awe of the organization level of your kids’ schools. There’s no provision for meals up here, LOL. Maybe I’ll try to kick something into gear, at least once per season!

  43. Jennifer says

    I’m right there with ya! My high school football player is currently traveling 3 hours to play an away game. It’s exhausting but I try to cherish every minute because he’s my youngest and it’s almost over forever 🥲

  44. Jessica says

    I’ve been wondering this since you originally posted about some of your kiddos moving schools. I live in a small town with one high school, so moving schools would mean going to a different town. It is certainly doable (I did it many years ago when I was going into my Freshman year), but there is a lot of red tape and hoops you have to go through. In our bigger cities where there are multiple high schools, kids are “assigned” where to go based on where they live. Did you face any of these type of logistics there in Texas?

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      Our school district (McKinney) has “assigned” elementary, middle and high schools but you can apply to change and go to any of the other schools (fairly easy). Ashby and Smith’s schools are located in Lucas, TX which is about 30 minutes from our house. They have an open enrollment program for out of district students, and we applied through that. It really was pretty simple.

  45. Jami says

    Small town Southern Indiana and while one typically thinks basketball in Indiana, football brings out the community more. I’m the treasurer at the high school so I get the joy of counting that money on Monday mornings. There really is just something about football on Friday nights. Our school definitely sounds more like Smith’s. Every school has their own stadium and we don’t travel too far. I don’t have a son that plays but we have a radio station and my freshmen is the play by play announcer for the radio and YouTube live stream. I’m the one in the stands watching the game while also having one earbud in listening or watching on my phone.

  46. Jessica says

    How is Smith able to attend whatever high school he wants is it because it’s a private school? Here in Illinois we are zoned for a certain district and school and you can’t choose. Just curious!!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      No, it’s also a public school. Some districts have open enrollment for out of district kiddos. We applied through their open enrollment program.

  47. Holly C says

    Born and raised Texan living in the Northeast (Maryland) for the last twenty-four years, I SO MISS Texas high school football! It is not the same – no Pep Rallies, the dance team is nothing like what I am use too, The Homecoming court… ALL OF IT!!! My daughter is doing JV cheer (freshmen can’t do Varsity their first year) which is so fun but it is nothing like I am use too…. enjoy your Friday Night Lights!!!

  48. LB says

    Football is pretty big here in NC…but not as big as Texas. And we don’t have mums! haha I have a cheerleader and a football player. Our football player also plays on his HS soccer team. So we are busy several nights a week. But I do love Friday nights where our youngest cheers on her brother! So I get 2 for one for FNL! I have had 4 kids in 3 different schools all over our county so I can understand your planned chaos. Somehow we just made it all work. My older kiddos have now graduated so that makes it a bit easier these days.

  49. Kat says

    We are very similar in Alabama–the TV shows about high school football (Two-A-Days on MTV), the all-roads-lead-to University of Alabama, the gigantic stadiums, the strategic scheduling. And we start them YOUNG. We have some serious competition at the youth level years before middle-school. I go watch the Under 9 years old kiddos on Saturday mornings. Full pads, at the high school stadium, concession stands with grilled food, tiny cheerleaders in real uniforms. It’s just how we do football in the south. The whole state loves Friday night lights. And then Saturdays are for all-day college football. I love it so much. And no matter how HOT and un-fallish the weather is, the return of high-school football just screams the start of fall for me. Thank you for a look at Texas!

  50. Ami Penick says

    I love how involved you guys are! Are these all public schools? They are so strict about school districts in Mississippi. How does that work in Texas? It seems great that you have options to find the best fit.

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      K, Smith and Ashby go to public schools. Smith and Ashby’s district has “out of district enrollment”, so you can apply and, if accepted, go there!

  51. April says

    We are originally from Houston and grew up with large stadiums and not traveling far and sharing stadiums with many other high schools. We wanted different for our kids and we are apart of a small school north of Waco. We travel about an hour or so for away games and we have our own stadium that we don’t share. We love the small town vibe and so does our kids. We have homecoming soon and our town does a fun parade and community pep rally and I’ll be finishing up those mums. Good times in Texas!

  52. Ashleigh Erickson says

    We just moved to Anna, TX 6 weeks ago from central IL. We have fallen in love with Texas football! We will be there tonight too… on the other side of course!

  53. Ginger says

    So interesting reading the comments about how other states do football. I just assumed all high schools made a big deal out of it. 🙂 Here in Missouri, it’s much like Texas. And in Webb City, football is KING! I remember watching Andrew Shull play some awesome football back in the day. I grew up in the small Missouri town of Houston; just had our 50-year class reunion — and the big topic of conversation was how good our football team was through our high school years. We only lost first game sophomore year and playoff game our senior year. And we’re STILL talking about it 50 years later. Enjoy every second; it goes by so fast.

  54. Lindsey Gorsline says

    Thanks for sharing about choosing a school for each of your kids. It’s amazing to see how much they can thrive when you find that right place for them and the affect that has on your entire family!

  55. Tish says

    Friday Night Lights in TEXAS! There is just nothing like it! The excitement, the energy, the atmosphere, the celebrations – it’s an experience and the BEST memories are made there! My Dad had season tickets to my high school from 1988 until he passed away in 2010. We kept those tickets in honor of his memory for years and still attended on his behalf. He knew all the fans that sat around him and it was a “football family” he cheered alongside. We sat in his same seats to watch our daughter walk for Homecoming Queen Court in 2016 and watch our oldest son play football. We love our Texas football! Good luck tonight!

  56. Madeline says

    Out of curiosity how much is a GA ticket for Kensington’s HS? Ours here in Kansas are usually around $7 and the stadiums are average. I assume with a stadium costing 70 million that it would be more for entry!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      It varies by the district, but it’s always around $7 too! JV and freshman games are more like $4 or $5.

  57. Tracy says

    Nothing to add to the football conversation but wanted to say good for you for figuring out what schooling options work best for each of your kiddos. My two did a variety until we found best fits – Christian, public, and an one ended up in an online charter school (and went on to online college).

  58. Elizabeth Feldpausch says

    I love how every school might do it all a littler different but everyone has big mums! 🥰

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      He has retired from rowing. We are sad to see it go (it was so much fun!), but he is just going to focus on football now.

  60. Natasha says

    Do we have football in Canada?!??! 🙂 I mean, I know a kid who plays it but it’s definitely NOT a thing. Nor is cheerleading.

    I would say, even though it’s totally cliche, that the thing we Canadians get excited about is hockey. Although we don’t have huge rinks or a big evening when it’s happening. But I would guess that many, many Canadians have watched a hockey game on the weekend with a cup from Tim Horton’s in hand.

  61. Megan says

    Do you launch into a mental recitation of the fruits of the spirit every time you type/say the name of Smith’s school, or is that just me? 😂 I grew up in a small PA town where football was a huge deal and it was the best! Enjoy!

    • Mix and Match Mama says

      I just lol! I will not be able to un-see this comment. I will think about this every single time now. Bahahaha!

  62. Bren says

    This was so very interesting and you answered so many things I have wondered about! I live in a town of 1200 people and we love our football, but I have been so intrigued by the large stadiums and also how you are managing the different schools. We live a good 20 minutes from town, so thinking about it, our normal everyday drive to town, honestly isn’t too much different that Smith and Ashby traveling the 30 miles to their school. Thanks for sharing, Shay!

  63. Alexis Meacham says

    What a fun post!! I live in FL and they do football big, but y’all do football biiiiiggggg!

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