I took a bus ride with sweaty H.S. kids ... and loved every second of it

B ucket lists, subjective by definition, normally wouldn't feature things like riding on a bus for an hour and a half with sweaty high school kids, who by game's end crowd back into the same bus that proceeds to smell like a gas station restroom.

But, yes, this has been a bucket list item since my high school days: Ride the bus with the team again to a road game.

Doesn't say much for my social life, but then, that's a tale of woe for another day.

So I asked Mike Ellis, the football coach at Fitch High, to hitch a ride to Bridgeport on Friday night for the game at Harding. Ellis, among my favorite coaches, obliged. And now, because I'm an insanely nice man, you can come along for the ride, too.

Some observations:

• If this DeVos woman really wants to be a boffo Secretary of Education, she can start here: Send every existing school bus to her favorite toxic waste dump and start over. All new buses shall have wider seats, more leg room, overhead storage and air conditioning. Poor kids. On those things every day? Even the sardines were laughing at us.

• Road games are massive undertakings. Absurd number of details, right down to making sure the bus driver has the correct address to the field. Harding's field is located at 389 Bond, which if nothing else, touched off a number of James Bond jokes.

"Where's the field? Bond. 389 Bond."

There's equipment, logistics, timing, praying there's not an accident

on our efficient roads, adjusting to locker rooms smaller than the aforementioned gas station restroom and a hundred other things.

The returning champions on Jeopardy who think coaching is about hopping on a bus, calling a few plays and then going out for a salad and a lemonade after the game should stick to the notion that, yes, it's possible to be loud and wrong at the same time.

• In spite of Harding's beautiful new field and roomy bleachers, a few Fitch parents decided to watch the game from beyond the fence behind the Fitch bench.

My favorite request came from a mother who cackled, "PUT IN MY SON!" at Dick Vitale decibels.

And so the next time you want to lecture kids for dizzying levels of self-indulgence, remember: Their behavior didn't come from teachers, society, or the system. Their behavior is inherited.

• If you played high school sports, I bet you remember the bus rides more than the games. Fun in its purest form. The Fitch kids, happy because they won, took to singing the entire ride home.

The highlights: "Party In The USA" by Miley Cyrus and "All Star" by Smash Mouth.

Sorry, but you haven't lived until you hear adolescent boys screaming "noddin' my head like, yeah; movin' my hips like, yeah," complete with all the gyrations.

• There is no sector of the population who amuses me more than high school kids. Their humor, self-imposed drama, lingo and ability to negotiate electronic devices are all gifts.

• Interesting game. A Fitch kid, receiving the second-half kickoff, didn't catch it and couldn't corral the ball until it was back at his 5-yard line. While the ball is bouncing uncontrollably, there's Ellis, the man who somehow does not curse on the sidelines, yelling "shoot! shoot!" rather than using more colorful prose.

I, meanwhile, couldn't control myself and sounded like part of a scene from Scarface momentarily. Don't know how Ellis does it.

• I've always wondered if they use school buses or coach buses for road games down in the Darien/New Canaan area.

• Nice folks at Harding. They have a beautiful new school and turf field. The whole gang talked on the ride home (above the singing) as to why Fitch doesn't have turf yet. Nobody had a really good answer.

So, Groton/Mystic folk: If they have turf in East Lyme, Waterford, New London, Stonington, Montville and Norwich, why not you? Why not now?

• Thanks again to Ellis, his coaches and his kids for all the hospitality. On to the next bucket list item: Banging the cymbal for the band between lyrics of the national anthem. You know: O say can you see (BANG) by the dawn's early light (BANG) etc. Told you my social life is a swing and a miss. Now you have proof. This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro