Personal Narrative Essay: The New World Of Football

Ever since I was a toddler, I loved sports. Baseball, basketball, it did not matter; I just liked to run. When I was around 4 or 5, I was in the living room watching the Steelers play the Cardinals and saw Santonio Holmes grab a game winning touchdown to win the Superbowl. I was so excited that I jumped up in the air and I told my dad, “Daddy when I grow up I want to play football and I want to score a lot of touchdowns just like 10 does.”

The biggest challenge that I have faced so far happened in 2016. I just joined Francis Parker and I got an academic scholarship. I was just crazy enough to join the football team. I later realized since there was no freshman football team that I was playing on varsity. I was 89 pounds and just above 5 foot.

Adrenaline pulsing through my body and anxiety filling up in my stomach, I quickly throw on my football gear and head out to the practice field. It’s a nice hot day in Ocala, Florida, with the sun beating down on our necks, we stand side by side in line waiting to be picked to play second, third, or fourth string in a play. Waiting in anticipation, each of us grinding our teeth, watching first string pure athletes colliding against each other like gladiators to have possession of a ball made at one-time of “pig’s skin”. To some people, the game of American football makes no sense, whether it’s the idea of trying to protect a ball or running and passing it to make a goal for your team. People like this, see the concept of football and understand why millions of people love it; but to them the sport is pointless and causes way too many casualties.

Sports, my entire life has been engraved by sports and I have managed to play quite the majority that our school offers. All the way since football wasn’t even a tackle sport I played in every game, I hit homeruns in baseball, and I even attempted to play basketball despite my performance level being subpar. Never did I ever think that I would enjoy a sport of just simply running, and I looked at the kids running on the track wearing short shorts and thought to myself how goofy they looked wearing them. Well, long story short, I stopped playing football after seventh grade because my coach wouldn’t let me play defense. Subsequently, I ended up joining Cross Country so I could continue playing sports during the fall season.

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.

I remember when I dislocated my finger in football. I was 12 years old and it was the beginning of practice. I remember that I was wearing my football gear. It was also sunny and hot. Before I dislocated my finger, I was running football plays.

My teammates and I finally reached the Atlanta stadium, the head coach told us all the formations,plays,strategies,and who will be starting. When I heard "Eric Marshall will be one of the primary and starting receivers," I almost jumped in joy, because it had been a dream to play in the super bowl. As we walked into the stadium to practice, I could hear fans screaming, many of which were cheering for us. I felt as if we could not lose or we would let many, many people down. While Marcus and I were doing some practice plays, I felt great When our rivals, the Patriots came in, they looked as if they have been training for this moment for their lives.

In life we experience many tough decisions of what we “ought to do” or what we “want to do”. For me one of the hardest decisions i had to make was should I quit football or should I stick with football and possibly get a scholarship and go to college. I thought about it for a long time and I thought of the consequences I would have if I did quit or if I sticked with it.

The best leader I’ve worked with was my Junior High Football coach. My coach used the Path-Goal Theory. I hated football and saw no future for me in that sport. I was teased and literally quit the year before at a different school. I heard about try outs at another school and decided to go.

“Whooo!” The crowd goes wild with excitement. We jump for joy as we score another goal. The soccer ball slashes the net with a hard enough kick to go straight through. Lexi and I scream with excitement knowing we just tied the score two to two with only 3 minutes left in the game.

I believe that every day is training day. As a high school athlete, sports are a way of relieving the stress of everything that is going on in my life. For me, that stress is relieved is when I step out on a soccer field with my team and we play to our best capability for 80 minutes. Any athlete knows that in order to become a great and dedicated athlete you have to put in the work and be passionate about what you do. When I was an eighth grader going to be freshman I thought I knew this already, as I did play soccer every year since I was five (I was fourteen at the time.)

I went up for a layup and got pushed hard in the back. When I came down, I felt my knee buckle and immediately knew something wasn’t right. The sound it made was alarming, proving to be a serious injury - a fractured femur. It was my junior year and I was looking forward to playing basketball and starting to train for the next football season.

Have you ever played tackle football if not this is a story of how I decided to play! First I was about 8 years old when I started to play flag football. It was so fun I wished I was in the NFL. I played flag football for 1 year I think that was one of the most fun years in my life. I was a center (which is the guy that snaps the ball to the quarter back)

People in this magnificent, ever changing, and complexity of a world seeks to find out who they are in this life. Not all are capable of understanding what they love; their passion. There is something in this world that I would never replace and that is soccer. Without this sport, I believe I would be a nobody in this world. Soccer is my identity;I honestly feel I can connect to the world through it.