Opinion: Why Beating Cedar Hill is So Important

If you’re like me, you don’t give a crap about football. Unfortunately, we live in Texas, so people like us are in the minority. However, despite all that, it’s pretty dang cool that we beat Cedar Hill 46-43 last Thursday.

Before moving to Mansfield right before the sixth grade, I lived in Cedar Hill. My mom’s best friend was an assistant principal at the high school and the football coach, Joey McGuire, was in their Sunday school class. Despite my disinterest in football, my dad and brother love it, so I grew up going to Cedar Hill football games. I was even there when they won their first state championship in 2006.

When my family moved to Mansfield, I still showed little interest in football, going to the occasional game only to hang out with friends. Freshmen year I was in the marching band, which meant I went to every. single. game. Including the Cedar Hill game. I’ll be honest, it was a little weird to be hoping that the team you’ve spent years rooting for would lose.

I honestly thought Mansfield wouldn’t stand a chance again them. Cedar Hill had won state the year before and was dominating. And yet somehow we won 49-34 last year. I’ve spent this past year thinking it was a fluke. Because come on, Cedar Hill went on to win a consecutive championship that year.

And then this year rolled around. If you had asked me how good our football team was at the beginning of the year, I would have said it’s not that good. Everyone’s said that for years, so why would this year be any different? We lost 2 games towards the beginning of the season, confirming my thoughts. However, they weren’t part of our district- so they didn’t count.

This year the Cedar Hill game was on a Thursday. I didn’t really feel like going. I still thought we were going to lose. The next day I really wish I had. We beat Cedar Hill 46-43 in the last few minutes. We were district champions.

So this is why it’s important we beat Cedar Hill. For one, it’s CEDAR HILL. They’ve won state the past two years and three times in the past decade. We became district champions for the first time in 42 years.The game rebooted Tiger Spirit, which some would say has been lacking. And it even made the people like me- non football fans- truly excited about playoffs.