The fiery sphere continued to bake Wildcat devotees in their aluminum seats as they cheered their team.

“Git him!” Kyle Sebek, a junior varsity football player yelled to the varsity defense as he jumped up and clenched a fist, stabbing the air with his punches. “Go…Go…Go!”

His pleas were heard and the Wildcats soon scored their first touchdown. Game officials tossed a penalty flag to the ground for excessively celebrating the score.

The first football game of the season began for Temple High School and the season has kicked off in Waco as the ’Cats attacked South Garland. After a couple of disappointing years for the Wildcats, an optimism rippled through the crowd like the wave of red and white foil pom-poms the Wildcat dancers punched in the air as they prepped the crowd for a long night.

“We better win this season,” Emily Vasek, a Temple junior varsity volleyball player said. “We need to show we can still win.”

Vasek and fellow friends, Katie Webb and Maerissa Thomas, all sophomores, rotate their hands in a mock-lasso-cheer led by the cheerleaders, hoping to rope in a win.

Rita Gillmeister, assistant principal at Temple High School shuttled in some extra cheerleaders for the game: her daughters, Heather, 7, and Laura, 2, with pom-poms for each of them. Her husband, Joel, went to Temple High School when the football team won the 1979 state championship.

“I went to school with guys that went to the 1979 championship,” Joel said. “They have a really good team this year and their chances (for playoffs) are good. We have always been a football city and the spirit is back.”

As Temple High School gathers the rising team spirit, upcoming Wildcats join in the football tradition. John Paul Johnson, 9, and his sisters Jazzmen Ortiz, 11, and Holly Johnson, 7, sit on the first row at the 50-yard line behind the standing rows of football players clad in white uniforms, one of which is their older brother.

“We are here because of our brother,” said John Paul. “But we know a lot of players on the team.”