My annual reverse rural-to-urban migration for the Holidays is always a bit of a wake-up call. Fewer and fewer of my peers return home, the town changes a little, a new sign here, another store gone under there, but mostly everything just feels older. And my hometown is no different than any of the others across America, just a small community struggling to find new blood while still clinging to a way of life that is becoming harder and harder to sustain.

It's an unspoken epidemic, and for good reason. Unless you're witnessing it first hand, it is easy to get lost in the buzz of a major city or manicured suburb, and many young rural residents have, myself included. But the beauty of sport is its unending potential to surprise us, and I was certainly surprised to find a small voice speaking for the small towns in a football book. And, as the reason I, and many of the others here, are writing about sports is because we spend much of our time reading about sports, I wanted to take a minute or two to point you in the direction of a book I feel is worth reading. (Also, I haven't written a book report in years...could be fun.)

Where Dreams Die Hard, by Carlton Stowers, tells the story of the Penelope, TX football program, in it's fourth year after a thirty-six year hiatus. The Wolverines of Penelope High play six-man football, a unique version of the game invented in Nebraska over 70 years ago to allow small, rural schools to compete in what has since become America's Game.

For the uninitiated, six-man football is played with, you guessed it, six players. Three down lineman and three backs, all of whom are eligible to catch a pass. The game is played on an 80-yard field, field goals are worth 4 points, kicking an extra-point 2, and running or passing for the conversion 1. (As you can tell, the kicking game isn't much of a factor.) At it's most popular, nearly 30,000 schools played this brand of football in the mid-50's, but now that number has dwindled to approximately 250, most of whom are found in Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico.

I must admit, when I first picked this book up I was pretty certain it was a Friday Night Lights spin-off, but Stowers regularly exceeds the "year with the team" format of so many other books. The true thrust of the story lies with the town and its 200-some residents.

While the Wolverines are woeful, they've won one game since continuing the sport in 2000, you get the feeling that the wins and losses are secondary. When the team didn't have a field to play on, a local rancher donated some pasture land. The scoreboard, goal posts and most of the equipment are all second-hand castoffs from other schools who have since upgraded. It's quite a departure from the blue-chip high school football most of us have come to associate with Texas: immaculate stadiums, indoor practice facilities and insane levels of competition. But for the people of Penelope, high school football is a welcome diversion from the bleak reality of small-town life.

It is both heartrendering and heartbreaking to watch as a town breathes with their football team, while inside the locker room players often have a tough time making it to practice, sometimes delayed by chores, other times apathy and the drag of another long losing streak. Despite the disparities in numbers, popularity and money between the six-man game and its bigger brother, you start to realize that no matter what the setting, every fall Friday thousands of people still share something under those same lights made famous in Odessa, Texas.

If you've never had a chance to see a six-man game, I highly recommend it. It is sort of like a full-contact track meet, run on grass. You get basketball-like scores, some aw-shucks hospitality and the center may snap the ball only to catch it a few seconds later. What more can you ask for?