Elton Reece no longer walks the floor at night, replaying old games in his head. Twenty seasons as an assistant football coach at Selma High School and another 10 or so with the city’s recreation program have cured him of that.

He still loves the game, still loves to be there when it all clicks and 11 kids suddenly come together as one.

But Reece is no longer as hungry as he used to be. He finds he is less willing to go to the extremes he once did to win. Less willing to tolerate those extremes in others.

As another football season gets under way, Reece reflects back on how his view of the game has changed over the years. Together with Selma High School coach Jerome Harper and Dr. John Niblett, headmaster and coach at Central Christian Academy, he offers a few observations about the game of football and about the game of life.

As executive director of the Selma Parks and Recreation Department, Reece says his biggest headaches take place not on the field, but in the stands.

A common problem involves parents who try to relive their childhood through their children. &uot;The problem with that,&uot; Reece points out, &uot;is that most parents were never as good as they think they were.&uot;

Single parents are often the worst offenders, but others can be just as bad. &uot;We have a lot of good parents, but you can be a good parent and still lose it at times,&uot; he says. &uot;They just get caught up in the game.&uot;

Likewise, Harper, who is beginning his 29th season as a coach, has observed a significant shift over the years in the nature of the support he receives from parents. He finds fewer parents today are willing to support a coach who insists on strict discipline.

The sentence hangs in the air, unfinished. Even so, Harper is still a firm believer that athletics can be a vehicle to reach students who otherwise lack the motivation to do well in school.

One thing, Harper insists, has not changed over the years. He still gets excited at the start of each new football season. &uot;I’m so fired up now,&uot; he says. &uot;I’m just as excited as I was that first season when I was a graduate assistant coach at Alabama State.&uot;

Niblett, who has been coaching for 33 years, agrees that athletics in general, and football in particular, have much to offer students.

Niblett contends that many of the changes in athletics mirror the changes in society as a whole. And not all of those changes, he believes, have been for the better.

It is, of course, a lot to ask of a game that it instill values the society at large does not embrace. Still, coaches like Niblett and Harper and Reece take the field each year in the steadfast belief that teamwork and perseverance and hard work are traits worth teaching.

Occasionally, one of Reece’s old players will come up and thank him for a word of encouragement given or a lesson learned in some long forgotten game. A few express the hope that he will one day coach their sons or daughters.

It is at such times, he says, that he finds himself rethinking the importance of winning.