Smiley Anders for Aug. 18, 2008

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Aug 18, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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It’s more than just a football game to the folks in Ville Platte.

Tim Fontenot, who’s been promoting the event for the past nine years, says Tee Cotton Bowl IX on Oct. 2 will kick off Ville Platte’s weeklong 150th birthday celebration.

The Cotton Festival the following week also will be a part of this observance.

The game, to be at Sacred Heart High, matches the team from all-white Sacred Heart against the team from 82 percent black Ville Platte High.

Tim calls the game “a lesson in sportsmanship and respect,” and says it’s been featured on ESPN, NFL Films and other national TV shows.

In addition to the game, there’ll be a zydeco band, fireworks and sky divers.

Tim says the bowl was conceived as a way to bring the community together for an event that transcends race:

“The two teams share a meal and prayers for each other the night before the game, and pray together after the game.”

(They might also hunt together — the game’s being held on a Thursday so it doesn’t interfere with the opening of squirrel season.)

Come together

People can find inspiration from many sources — even old movies.

Says a reader, “My husband and I were watching a Civil War movie when I  heard a Yankee general tell a wounded Rebel soldier at the end of the war: ‘As a general of this man’s army, I have one last order to carry out — to bind up the wounded of our nation.’ ”

She says she thought of those she knew who were “wounded — physically, mentally, financially, morally” and then “I wondered what response people today would have to hearing this.