In a job where you deal in words, sometimes it's easy to forget the people behind the stories, the ones that many times make the subject more interesting to discover. I can truly say that I may possibly be falling into that trap.

All that changed last Saturday.

I had the opportunity to watch two events that reminded me why I love this job so much.

The first event falls into the category of random sports. I got to cover a lawnmower race. That's something I can truly say that I have never done. It took multiple attempts to find Pettus Street in Georgiana, but once I did, I could tell that it was going to be an interesting afternoon. It was fascinating to meet the guys that I'd heard about from Allen Stephenson, the one who helped coordinate the "Pettus Street 500" and hear some of the trash-talk that had been going on prior to the race, first hand. It was great.

One of the best parts of the race was watching "Speedy" Steve Williams cruise down the strip with his feet propped up on the steering wheel. Or watching Richard "CSI" Hornsby struggle to keep the front end of his motor down after he had sup'ed it up too much.

From that event, I went to cover local children playing football.

It's fun to watch because it's one of those rare, pure sports

Standing on the sidelines of the

game I realized why it was so fun watching them.

To these children, their entire bodies covered in pads with oversized helmets propped on their heads, a win is a win and a loss means you're getting trash talked the next day by your classmates.

I had been covering all three Greenville squads, but I finally saw why the Termite teams had so much fun playing. It's because the coaches have fun.

I saw Termite coach Milton Crittendon helping the Mighty Mite cheerleaders do their cheers. He was even doing the motions with pom-poms.

And his team was about to play in the championship game in less than 15 minutes.

Talk about your loose team.

Itis no wonder they won the game. It's because they played it in its purest form. No big contracts, no big press, no big hype. They played for the joy of playing and the joy of competing.

It's that simple.