How Football Affected My Life

Do you have that certain something that has affected your life for better? Football is that thing for me. I have played it as long as I could walk. I still remember the time when I was very little and my dad would take me to the front yard and we would play catch and talk about football for hours. I have enjoyed football in three big parts of life: Pee Wee, Junior High, and High school.

It’s fourth down, 3 yards to go, ball on our own 15 yard line. There's only 1:41 left on the clock in the fourth quarter. Coach calls the play, my cousin Caden, the quarterback, repeats it to the rest of the huddle. “Right fullback blast on one, on one. Ready? Break! Before I know it I’m in my fullback stace ready to take the hand off and get the first down. Set! Hut! The play begins and I come out of my stace hard and low. I see a massive hole on the left side, I make one cut and there's nothing between me and the end zone. Immediately I hear the small crowd erupted as I’m in a full sprint towards the goalline. As I cross the line and turn around, I see my teammates running toward me jumping, cheering, and patting each other on the back because we have just won our last game together.

I no longer played on a team with my best friends since childhood, I was no longer a fullback, and I was no longer a bulldog. I had moved across the street into the town that I had grown up wanting to beat all my life. Now I found myself in a blue uniform playing quarterback with guys I had only met a few weeks prior to our first game. I was a stranger, in the town I had despised growing up, leading a team that I didn’t know. The following year I expected to be better and it was for the most part. However, there was one team on the schedule that I was specifically looking forward to. That game was one of the most hard fought I had ever played in. It was a physical battle, and in the end my team emerged victorious. My new team that