Unbelievable as it may seem, school will be starting very soon and before you know it, football season will be underway.

Now, football happens to be my favorite spectator sport.

I went to plenty of games back in my elementary school days, as my parents and I followed my older sisters, both GHS band members, all across south Alabama on those crisp fall Friday nights.

Later, I cheered myself hoarse as a member of the pep club in high school.

In between, my buddies and I had a few very rough and tumble scrimmages in junior high (and it wasn’t that sissy &uot;touch&uot; stuff, either.

I had the bruises and bent eyeglass frames to prove it, believe me.)

So, I know the game of football and I know what it takes to succeed in it. You need solid teamwork and a positive attitude to consistently win on the gridiron.

Oh, yes, talent, ability and experience—even dumb luck— all play their roles.

But however good individual players may be, if they can’t come together and work together as a united team, they are ultimately doomed to frustration and failure.

Teamwork has been on my mind often of late.

My family and professional life has been fraught with challenges, frustrations, disappointments and near despair over the last several months, all coming to a head in the past week.

If, as they say, the devil only really messes with you when you’re trying hard to stick to the right path, then it seems my family has hit a big ol’ detour sign planted by Beelzebub himself.

So what, pray tell, do our various woes and crises have to do with teamwork?

Simply this: If we (i.e., my family members and I) hadn’t been trying to work together to help one another and support one another physically, mentally and spiritually through all these storms, I dare say the difficult circumstances we currently face would be much worse.

Today (Monday) we took my father to the Health South Rehabilitation Hospital in Montgomery.

It was a long, hard day for all of us and it was pretty tough to leave him behind tonight when we headed back to Honoraville.

He grows very confused at times.

There are moments when he struggles to communicate with us but the words simply come out all scrambled. How frustrated—and frightened—he must feel.

So we need another team, one that will help us, help him.

We are counting on the professionals at the hospital to put him through a ‘brain boot camp’ of sorts, to be tough when we might be too tender, to help get him back to (as close to) normal as possible.

And we’ll be cheering him on.