6-man football keeps Friday nights alive in Texas

The school auditorium is rocking in the tiny town of Gordon, Texas, population 500. Excitement ahead of the football game is as big as Texas, even if the contest itself is downsized. These Longhorns play six-man football. Mike Reed is the coach. Describe six-man football to people who don't know what it is. It would be like watching a basketball game with football pads on. It's very, very, very fast. It's very, very high scoring.

And very realistic for schools too small to field an 11-man team, says Reed, who also drives the team bus to the games, like this one in Lingleville, Texas, home of the Cardinals. Go Cardinals!

High-school football, almost religion here in Texas, is typically played in front of thousands. The stands here hold only a few hundred, but pride runs just as deep. I think it's a necessity for a small school. It's just a huge booster. It's a morale booster for the whole community.

Six man has been around for decades but is seeing a resurgence as rural populations decline. Texas now has more than 230 teams, up from 80 in the 1990s. In towns like Gordon, it's often the social event of the week. It's the coffee shop, essentially, when you've lost main street.

Granger Huntress is a freelance reporter who's covered the sport for decades. So it's important? It's very important to these communities. It's a sense of identity. There's this sense of pride. This is our team. We haven't had to shut down yet. We're still open.

Six man is a shorter and narrower field. Kicks are worth four points. A first down takes 15 yards. And every player does it all, offense, defense, and special teams. The sizzling concession stand looks the same as any high-school game and plenty of hometown energy. I feel like it's what brings people together. In a world where it's so divided, it's like one thing we can get behind is six-man football, and that's exactly what we do every week.

Because there's a football team, there's also a cheer squad and a drumline, offering the lessons of teamwork Coach Reed says every student deserves, regardless of where they live. When they say football is life, it's not so much that football is life as it is that sports is life, adversity, and things that you have to learn through team building.

Preserving tradition, a leaner game with a lasting legacy where the Friday night lights still burn bright. For Eye on America, I'm Janet Shamlian in Lingleville, Texas.