Fans at the Northwood-Carrboro football game may have noticed the color pink around Charger Stadium. Pink has become identified with the fight against breast cancer, and October has been designated as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Athletics at all levels have embraced the battle against breast cancer, and even hulking, 300-pound-plus linemen think almost nothing these days about wearing pink socks or wristbands with their uniforms.

In Pittsboro, many folks are wearing caps specially designed by Chatham County Sheriff Richard Webster. The baseball caps have the word “Sheriff” in pink letters across the front; a rounded version without a bill simply bears a pink ribbon.

The caps were being sold for $15 and the net proceeds are to be contributed to the Relay for Life project.

“My wife, Teri, is a cancer survivor,” said Sheriff Webster, whose son Andrew plays on the Northwood football team. “I wanted our office to have an opportunity to pay tribute to all those who have struggled through this dreaded disease.”

All Sheriff employees can wear the caps with their normal uniform through the month of October.

A move up, locally

There’s been a seismic shift in the News & Observer’s football ratings this fall.

For the past few years, Durham schools did better in the rankings of Triangle teams than any other group except Wake County schools. (Hardly surprising in a Raleigh-based publication.) Hillside and Southern usually dominated, while Northern or Jordan might hang in there. Chapel Hill High School was sometimes ranked, but only at times.

This season, Orange County schools have bumped their way ahead.

Carrboro (at No. 10), Orange (12) and Chapel Hill (19) are all ranked by the N&O. Northern (20) is the lone Durham team ranked.

Notably, Carrboro is ranked higher in the Associated Press statewide poll, at No. 8 in the 2A classification, than it is in the Triangle by the N&O, which ranks all classes together. The Jaguars are the only Triangle-area football team ranked by AP in any classification.

Also …

East Chapel Hill (No. 4) and Chapel Hill (10) are both ranked in the N&O’s soccer ratings, while Chapel Hill (5) and Orange (10) are both ranked in the N&O’s volleyball poll.

That makes Chapel Hill to be the only local team to be ranked in all three sports.

A modest proposal

Up in Dover, N.H., a retired physician who is a member of the local school board says high school football should be banned. Dr. Paul Butler made the suggestion at a recent board meeting.

Butler cited the risks run by football players of concussions and their link to brain damage, depression and dementia, the Associated Press reported.

His modest proposal drew considerable attention, most of it negative.

The Dover school board quickly put out a statement that it had no plans to get rid of football in the schools.

Peter Wotton, the Dover High athletics director, noted that the school had a concussion prevention program, and he also pointed out there were more concussions reported in girls’ basketball last year than in football.

“Any sport is a target,” Wotton told the AP. “Anytime you put kids in motion, there is an inherent risk.”

There’s a tendency by some in our nation to react to any problem by making a law against it. And there are no doubt some in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community who think contact sports are just dreadful, and so they would agree with a proposal to ban team athletics.

It’s the same misguided thinking that led to the Volstead Act. It was, after all, for our “own good.”