When people say “you can’t go back” … they generally mean it in a philosophical way. We can’t replay the past, what’s done is done, and so forth.

For me, in ways perhaps not particularly typical, “you can’t go back” has turned out to be literal.

I can’t go back to my grade school because it’s gone. I can’t go see my college football team play, because they shut down the program 16 years ago.

And I can’t go back to my high school because it was shuttered back in June. Makes it difficult to reach out to other alumni and homecoming games are going to be thin on the ground, going forward.

Specific bits of tradition attached to the high school will be lost to history.

Like the “fight song” — the peppy tune played by the band during sports events, in particular.

So, in the interest of saving a bit of history, here are the words. Written, I believe, by an early choir director of my high school, mostly known as “L.A. Lutheran” during its 60-some years of history.

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His given name was Luiz Carlos Saroli, but he was known by the informal Caio Junior, going back to his playing days in Portugal and his native Brazil. And that is how we referred to him in the pages of The National while he coached in the UAE.

He died in a plane crash tonight, along with most of the rising Brazilian soccer side Chapecoense, short of the airport runway, near Medellin, Colombia.

The disaster touches many lives in many ways, but for those of us who came into contact with Caio Junior in the UAE, his untimely death comes as he seemed on the brink of making his mark as one of South America’s elite soccer coaches.

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I realized this weekend I have moved into a form of Premier League partisanship that revolves around a single question:

What is best for Bob Bradley?

Bradley is the coach of Swansea City, a club already mired in a fight to avoid the disaster of relegation.

Bradley is the American coach of Swansea City, and the first U.S. citizen to coach a team in any of Europe’s “big five” national soccer leagues — that of England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

It is a ground-breaking appointment, and I believe it is important that Bradley be seen as not failing in his one clear assignment — keeping Swansea in the Premier League.

Hence, my new approach to Premier League results.

Start with the craziest game of yesterday’s Premier League matches.

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College football is huge in the U.S.  Any American who saw any of the big games today knows that.

American college basketball isn’t far behind football, especially when we consider March Madness, when John Q. Public becomes a fan of whichever Cinderella is dancing.

Could make a case that college baseball and softball have their moments, too, when it comes to the playoffs.

And the rest of the world — aside, perhaps, by Canada — does not understand this, the avid American interest in college sports.

Why would that be?

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I was never in the same room as Fidel Castro, but I was in the same stadium.

It was the opening ceremonies for the 1991 Pan American Games and Castro’s Cuba was the host nation. A team of reporters had been assembled by Gannett News Service and USA Today and sent down to Havana on a chartered plane — because no regular air links between the U.S. and Cuba existed at the time.

As we entered the 50,000-capacity Estadioamericano for opening ceremonies, August 2, 1991, I remember the smell of wet cement. The infrastructure for the Pan-Ams was not quite complete and to this day wet cement makes me think of Fidel Castro and Havana.

As head of state for the host nation, Castro was supposed to speak only a handful of words: “I declare open” the Pan-Am Games, or something similar.

My recollection is that he went beyond that. Though not on a multi-hour harangue of the sort he often gave to the Cuban people in the Plaza de la Revolucion.

Castro died tonight at the age of 90, a decade after he ceded power to his younger brother, Raul.

I read lots and lots of stories about Fidel Castro over the decades, but probably none of that sticks with me as does the experience of two-plus weeks in Havana, 35 years ago.

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We now have added the Languedoc to places in the world where we have had Thanksgiving dinner.

That ends a period of five years out of seven when we celebrated Thanksgiving in Abu Dhabi. The exceptions were … when we spent it in Paris (inviting some people over to where we were staying) and when we spent it with family in Southern California.

And probably does not match the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong (in 2008) for “most exotic” venue.

But this is home, now, and we like to think the first of many here in the south of France.

We had in our house 80 percent of all Americans who live in our town of 600 — us two and the couple who live on the other side of the village. All we were missing was the long-timer, who for decades was the only American in town. Maybe next year.

The excitement?

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Same song, difference verse.

Yesterday, I mentioned I had never seen a rugby match. Not so much because I don’t like rugby, but because I do not follow it and it is unfamiliar to me.

Then we get to sports I know well, perhaps even quite well, which I would prefer not to see, going forward.

Formula One racing is at the top of the list.

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Rugby is the most significant global sport I had never seen in person.

That void on the resume has been addressed.

Tonight, our French friend, a rugby aficionado, took us to see an international match at the nearby “big” city, Beziers.

The U.S. women’s national rugby team, versus France’s women, at the Stade de la Mediterranee, as both teams prepare for the 2017 Rugby World Cup in Ireland.

Final score: France 35, U.S. 10.

My first rugby match left me impressed on several levels.

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Jurgen Klinsmann was fired today and it looks as if the U.S. Soccer Federation is taking our advice on another matter, too:

Bruce Arena as the new/old U.S. national team coach. That would be Bruce Arena, he of five MLS Cup championships, three with the LA Galaxy, and a quarterfinals run at the 2002 World Cup.

Various outlets are reporting it is going to happen soon.

I feel much better about the U.S. chances of reaching the 2018 World Cup, with the flaky Jurgen retired to Orange County and the crabby Bruce replacing him.

The great thing about Bruce Arena?

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Is this a “thing” in the U.S., too?

The 24 craft beers advent calendar, yours for 60 British pounds, or about $75.

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