COMMENTARY — High school sports teams are the heart and soul of many communities large and small. Around here, we’re no exception.

And in the history of most of those schools, if not all, there’s been the phenomemon known as the superfan.

Jerry Motte was such a person for all of the teams at Mortimer Jordan High School.

He was a near-constant presence at Blue Devils contests of all kinds, even those where his children weren’t taking part. (His son, Jon Paul, was a three-year quarterback for the Devils’ football team. His youngest son, Logan, is a freshman at Jordan.)

While newcomers like myself know him for his perseverance in supporting the Devils even when confined to a wheelchair, most folks have seen him around for years before that. At football games, he was particularly fond of hanging out near the goal posts in the end zone near the main gate.

He was particularly supportive of the Jordan state champion softball teams of the past two years, even though neither of his daughters played on the teams.

In my too-many years of being around high school sports, I’ve seen many Jerry Mottes — though none of them had the huge background in big-time music promotion of the real thing.

The high school superfan comes in many forms.

Sometimes it’s the retired principal or teacher, who continues to root for the team lomg after his or her teaching days are over.

Other times, it’s a young person who is physically or mentally challenged, who adopts his school’s teams as his own, with the adoption usually returned in kind. Those are particularly heart-warming; we journalists love to write feature stories about them.

Sadly, others are often students — all too often teammates — who are badly injured in a car accident. Their mates will rally around the fallen friend, rolling him or her around in a wheelchair to pep rallies or games. Writers like to pen stories about them, too, even though it’s an outcome we don’t like to see.

If the good Lord is with us, though, that tragedy turns into triumph. If you’re fortunate enough to be at a pep rally where an injured student gets up out of a wheelchair and walks fo rthe first time, and you hear the thunderous cheers — well, even the most jaded reporter will have a tear in the corner of their eye.

Jerry Motte didn’t really fill any of those stereotypes. He had a very full life before cancer struck him last year. Amember of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Motte ran a concert promotion and artist management agency that worked with some of the biggest names in the music business.

During the eulogy at Motte’s funeral service Thursday, his son Jock — a well-known high school football referee — told about riding to a concert in a limo with Jerry Lee Lewis and “Little Richard” Pennyman, and having the two flamboyant artists break into a heated argument about the Bible. I can see Pennyman getting into it over the Scriptures, as he later became a minister. But Lewis? That’s a bit of a stretch, but stranger things have happened.

My point is that every team or program needs something to rally around. Perhaps the best known was one George Gipp, The famous Notre Dame back and punter came down with strep throat shortly after leading the Fighting Irish to a win over Northwestern, and was in a hospital bed before his team was to face unbeaten Army at Yankee Stadium in 1928. Gipp told his coach, Knute Rockne, to tell his teammates “to go out there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper.”

The Irish won, and the scene was immortalized in the movie Knute Rockne, All-American, starring Pat O’Brien as the coach and some guy named Reagan as Gipp.

And so it is that the Mortimer Jordan softball team is dedicating their season, and their attempt at a third straight state title, to Jerry Motte. He’s been with them in body, and now he remains with them in spirit.

It’s the kind of spirit every school and every sports team should have.