Personal Narrative: A Career In American Football

Introduction

It was the beginning of my 5th grade school year, and I decided that I wanted to begin a new sport. On the first day of practice, having never played the sport, our coach lined us all up on the field. Our team had a quarterback from the previous year that was returning, but he had no one to back him up this season. As coach Link stood back to examine his future team, unexpectedly, he pointed at me and said, “you are going to play quarterback”. Excited, reflecting back, it was one of the best moments of my life. This excitement was fueled by something much larger, however. Although never having played the sport, the NFL Network channel was always on in my room. There was one player though, that inspired me to ever pick up the game in the first place; that being, Tom Brady. Dating back to his college

Tom Brady approaches the center and immediately reads the defense. He notices, though, that the linebacker is in a different place than anticipated. So, in a heated moment, he calls an audible. The ball is snapped, the running-back gets the ball, and the first down is achieved because of the play call. Countless times, Brady does such in a game. His ability to do so, in recent years, has only been matched by that of Peyton Manning; who is considered one of the best to ever do it, as well. In doing so, though, validates Brady’s leadership more than anything else he does. This correlates with the old saying, “actions speak louder than words”, and could not be any truer than in the game of football. These four characteristics, however, are simply just scratching surface level when referring to him as a leader. On a deeper note, traits that make any leader admirable have been consistently proven to be possessed by Brady. Per best-selling author, Jim Kouzes, video , both being forward-looking and competent have shaped him into being as influential of a leader as he is today. Both are equally important, and