It’s already been the summer of Irene, an earthquake, the swamp fire — which continues even through Irene’s best effort — and a heat dome.

By the calendar, there’s still three weeks of summer to go. On the high school sports calendar, it’s time to move into the fall sports season and Friday night football games, and if needed a Tuesday night game works nearly as well.

Sports, as valuable as they can be in a community, can’t solve problems. A football game won’t rebuild a home or business, turn the power back on or anything else like that.

Hopefully, and in a way that has surprisingly little to do with a win-loss record, a game can be a way for a community to return to normal. It worked that way after the tornado three years ago and following the blizzard, a blizzard relative to this part of the country anyway, two winters back.

Friday night at a school’s stadium or gymnasium, with fans of all ages, the band at halftime, the concession stand, perhaps tailgating for the truly dedicated, even at high school games, is a great chance for a community to be a community.

Rallying around, or even having scholastic sports, at the high school and college levels, in this manner is uniquely American, too.

The attendances of all the Friday football games at tens of thousands of high schools around the country from September to November put the combined total of NFL games two days later to shame.

Varsity sports are meant to be fully competitive. It matters who wins. That said, for anyone who attended last fall’s Indian River at Lakeland game, was there really a winner following both squads fighting after the post-game handshakes?

There were fights at other games around Hampton Roads last fall. In this instance though, it was especially saddening since the game itself was a prime example of why high school sports are great.

The Cavaliers and Braves were out of district or postseason races, yet the game was completely entertaining. The two squads represented themselves and their schools proudly. The Cavs and Braves played hard, competitive football.

What happened moments after the game ruined in a heartbeat all of what both teams should have taken away from the game.

Not that the kids on the field are concerned with this in the heat of a contest, but one bad incident also turns an evening of school and civic pride, along with simple fun, into questioning whether football games should be played on Saturday afternoons along with other repercussions that would take away from the excitement of the sport.