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Ramond Hunter

Mr. Short

English 1020

29 August 2010

“The Woodshed”
On a dark Friday fall night in the middle of the country lays a small town. A town of

1,100 residents and a high school that has 290 students comes together for the most

exciting night of the week. Friday night lights in Brentwood, Missouri where the entire town

comes to “The Woodshed” for a great night of high school football and to cheer on their

favorite team. I hold many types of memories on Robert Penn Field, both sad and amazing,

from blow outs going both ways to an endless amount of plays I will never forget, and

twenty-seven teammates that I now call my twenty-seven brothers.

“The Woodshed” gets its name from the history of the game of football. It is where the

athletic trainers take players that were severely injured in the game. How they got injured:

the hard hitting Brentwood Eagles Football Team. Around 6:30 at night the stands start to fill

as if it was black Friday and the store with the deal of the year just opened. Football fans

enter the game around the 25 yard line under a chipped yellow sign with purple letters that

reads Home of the Eagles. The aroma of Coach I’s barbeque hot dogs, brats, and the burgers

hits you instantly while you see all of the other team fans all dressed up in their team colors
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yelling at you pumping you for the great night of hard hitting Saint Louis high school football.

Right behind the high school is a 6 lane fire truck red track with seven faded white lane lines.

To what Brentwood calls “The Woodshed”, the other team simply calls the other team’s

field. In the middle of the track you see money-green grass on the outer portion of the field

with a patch of brown as if you were looking at an abandoned lot that all the water soaks up

in the middle and just leaves mud. The dirt put down on the field makes a fan think it’s a

baseball game he just paid to watch, covers the grass that faded away as a disappearing act

done by Houdini himself. Freshly painted white lines put down by an Brentwood Police

officer stretches out 53’ 1/3 yards that goes every 5 yards horizontally. On both sidelines

you’ll see both teams standing with their helmets on all looking a lot bigger with their pads

on and the coaches in the opposite team color of the jerseys so they can stand out. In the

end zone you will see two Southern Mississippi Eagles that many say looks like a hawk

painted in the with spray paint white with yellow eyes. Right above the most artistic person

on the team’s masterpiece, you’ll see the school bus color goal post 30 feet high and

stretches 23 feet 4 inches wide. The most appealing feature of “The Woodshed’ is also the

newest feature, now 3 years old. Just northeast of that bright goal post stands one of the

largest and newest scoreboards in St. Louis. Painted purple the same color as Smucker’s

grape jelly in yellow writing has all of the following: the score, timeouts remaining for both

teams, who has possession of the ball, the yard line the ball is on, play clock, and home of

the eagles. At the bottom of the scoreboard in the bottom left corner is the only school

sponsor National City. Right under the 70 foot scoreboard the

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coach would see a giant purple and gold B in the grass, which was put down in 1958 when

Brentwood was first established. Directly across the field you is a black pole going 20 feet in

the air with a purple box with gold numbers which tells the quarterback when he has to hike

the ball. Directly next to the play clock you will see a brown brick building with a garage door

with smoke all around it. People are all around trying to fight to get their food so they can

get back to their seats. On both sidelines of the field right outside the track are metal hard

twelve row stands stretching out from goal-line to goal-line one-hundred yards, and are

filled with friends, family members, girlfriends, teachers, and whoever wants to watch a

good game, as if you were at the stands at the state championship game. On the home side’s

last section, most of the noise is created. This section is for the students called “The Purple

People”, with their bodies painted purple instead of shirts and as drunk as if you were at

Packers Stadium yelling, ringing a cowbell, and cheering their team and classmates to a

victory.

“The Woodshed” is my favorite place for many reasons. I went to do battle with 27 of

my brothers for 4 years turning the program from 3-6 record my freshman year to 12-2 my

senior year and making it to the State Championship game. The community looking down on

the game and cheering us on to add a victory to our record. Elementary and middle school

kids run up to us, idolizing and congratulating us on a good game and wanting you to give

them a high five and one day dreaming to be you. Another reason it’s my favorite place is

that in a class 2 football game, the concession stand brought in over $8000 in one night.
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“The Woodshed” will always be home to me and even though I’m done with battle with my

brothers. “The Woodshed” will always have a special place in my heart and a place I will

continue to visit for all of the great memories and for all of the opponents we sent to “The

Woodshed.”