The Argus Observes from Sept. 4, 1952 -- On football stirring the blood

By Don Lynch

Does football stir your blood? It does that of countless fans the country over, stirs the senses as few sports do.

Perhaps one reason is that play begins here each year as the season changes to autumn, when one feels a physical alertness and a new fund of energy s the first cool weather occurs. New enthusiasm shapes up in many forms and in the field of sports it turns to the starting of football.

If you want to feel the freshness of autumn moving through your veins, if you want to recapture some of the boundless energy of teen-age, attend the Snake River Jamboree on the Ontario high school field Friday night.

Every town enjoys the pleasure of its football game and some lucky towns have pre-season all-star games; but Ontario has its own superb football opener in the Snake River Valley jamboree, which is a unique show of its kind in this area.

What a thrill it is to watch the bands move out across the field, led by pert drum majorettes, to stand in the bleachers at attention as the drums roll while the Legion color guard carries the flag past the stands, to listen with pardonable pride while our Snake River Valley kids massed together in one large band play an unpracticed version of the Star Spangled Banner and watch with pride as the athletes stand at attention bareheaded while the colors are raised.

Then the line-up, the whistle, the first game is on and you can feel the excitement and tension of the kids down there waiting anxiously to get hit good and solid for the first time, and waiting to run that precarious first play so they can wear off the nervous edge and settle down to real performance.


NOTE: The Sept. 8, 1952 issue of The Argus-Observer reported that all teams played scoreless quarters of football in Friday night’s Football Jamboree at the Ontario High field. The Ontario Tigers fumbled away their best chance to score on the Weiser 24-yard-line.