How Football Changed My Life

Throughout my life certain events have shaped the person I have become today. The most relevant point to this change was the when I stood up for myself and said no to playing football like everyone wanted. This decision led to a split in the relationship with my dad, as well as a source of enemies in school, but I was proud of myself for doing what I wanted. I grew up in a small town in a large county. My dad was known by almost every person in the town, either through work or his work with the high school athletics program. The biggest thing in this town is its football team. When I was born one of the first presents I got was a t-shirt proclaiming I was a future player for the football team. When I was born I was a big child already. When I was 1 ½ I could push my mom around on a chair with ease. I was starting to become a strong kid early on and the football program took notice. The coaches of the high school team all the way down to the junior pee-wee coach were personal friends of my dad, so it only made sense that I would play for them.

I was almost twice the size as some of the kids and a power house on the field. At that time I actually enjoyed playing football since it was just for fun and no real competition. When I grew too big for flag football, I was put in the junior pee-wee league. There was more competition in this league, but I was still having fun playing. One bad thing about playing in this league was that they started having weight limits to be in it. I was big child and it was always hard to stay in the weight. I sometimes had to take off almost all my clothes and equipment to be under the weight limit. This was embarrassing to me and made me feel bad about myself. This was the turning point of me starting to hate