Restore the roar of the Wildcats

“Let’s restore the roar” is a comment by a Newark Wildcat fan, writing about the resignation of NHS Football Coach Buchanan. “Let’s restore the roar” means, in the fan’s (patsredwings) context, “let’s get back to having a wining Wildcat football team.”

There was another comment that stood above the others. It was from Keynan Williams, whose title is “Running Back #23 Class of 2011,” and who said “we're gonna go into the 2010 season, heads held high, ready for a street fight.”

To Keynan - and to me - the lousy records of recent years don’t matter. The fact that there’s going to be a new football coach doesn’t matter. What matters is simply, and mostly, a matter of spirit - a matter of how much fight will be taken to the field.

And that - the amount of fight - is largely dependent on how much Wildcat roar will be restored. If all these youngsters read and hear is more criticism from community quarterbacks and commentators - a constant yammer about all the things wrong with the football program - then it’s going to be that much more difficult for them to bring a street fight to the field.

To me, the Wildcat football team is to Newark what the OSU football team is to Ohio. I know it’s irrational, but if the Wildcat football team kicks butt, then in some illogical and implausible way, I have been victorious, and I’m not even particularly a sports fan.

My wife, who is less of a sports fan than I am, never fails to watch the Buckeye games with me, and she has been known to jump from the couch and scare the dogs when OSU does something magnificently right or wrong. Such enthusiasm for football from a non-sports fan supports the thesis that a winning football team is really important.

I see the Wildcats as a rallying place for a community that needs a lift in spirits, for a school system that’s been beat into the ground by unfortunate administrative bungling.

If we can make the Wildcats roar again, I think Newark citizens would feel better about ourselves. And I for one, will be watching - if only in spirit - when Running Back #23 Class of 2011 brings out next season’s street fight.

Newark, git ‘er done.