Personal Narrative: My First Football

Everyone rushed over to me. I saw everyone huddled around me with worried looks on their faces. Everyone was asking if I was OK, but I didn’t answer because I was in so much pain. My coach had me walk to the dugout and poor water on my knee while he got me an icepack. I put the icepack on my knee but it felt like my knee was on fire!

My coach comes rushing onto the field. He takes me off the field and says “Are you ok, do you need a doctor?” I say “ It hurts, but I don’t think I need a

It all started with the snap of a leather football. I came out of my stance to get double teamed by an angry and aggressive nose guard and fast line backer. I get pushed back as my clumsy feet get tripped up and I fall backwards. A fierce pain shoots up my back as I groan. My friend helps me to my feet as I stumble back to the huddle.

A rush of cold brittle air accelerated to my nose. I toe poked the ball just past the goalkeeper as my body made aggressive contact with the itchy sharp grass. I saw the soccer delicately touch the corner of the net. The crowed roared with cheers as I scored. The score was one to zero as the final whistle blew.

One sunny afternoon on June 6, 2012 we gathered at the neighborhood baseball field in Wizzy, TX. The neighborhood kids came and family members it was quite a lot of kids that gathered to play today. We started off picking leaders and teams dividing us up in even amounts and flipping a coin to see who hits first. We started the ball game and both teams were doing amazing with fielding and hitting. Then boom the drama started and nobody had a clue why Enrique and Birdie were fighting.

I owe my success to my failures, and I’m very grateful for them. The biggest failure of my life was when I tore my ACL. Without this major blow to my football career, I wouldn’t have had a football career at all. In my trials and tribulations I found myself, like steel that’s been tested in fire.

Personal Narrative Tackle football at Waterford Sabercats was hard for me when I first started. The first week was running non stop and it wore me out. “You are almost done,” I remember my dad telling me when we were doing an exhausting dill. But as the week progressed, I got used to the conditioning, but it still hurt.

Standing out in the blistering August heat covered head to toe with thick, bulky pads and a helmet may not be everyone's idea of enjoying their summer, but for football players it’s what we live for. Those long summer days spent with your new football family (who we spend more time with than our actual families) help spark the idea that together we can prevail. For two weeks in which seems to be the most enduring, draining two weeks of our lives, teammates battle each other for the chance the start under the Friday night lights and experience all the gory that goes with it. I was entering my sophomore year in high school when I started my first double session practice in the beginning of August. The first morning practice began at 7 A.M on a day with the potential to reach record heat.

It was late after school around 3 o’clock. I just had laid down on my bed. I heard my mom yell for me. I ran downstairs and there was my mom all dressed to go somewhere, I asked her “Where are we going?” she replied “ Remember, you have your first soccer practice.”

“She is not fit enough for football, she wouldn’t survive.” That is all I heard in the summer of 2013. All summer I had been getting ready for football in the fall. I had told my mom that I wanted to try football. She had a worried expression on her face, but she said yes.

Here I go, down my stairs to ask a question that I know for sure my mom will throw a fit about. There I am in our living room standing three feet away from my frightening mom. She asks, “What do you want?” I stand there not wanting to ask the question, hesitating for a second or two and then I finally spill out the words “ Would it be okay if I skip Friday’s volleyball tournament and cheer at the first home football game?” Of course like the strict mother she is, she says, “ No you are going to the volleyball tournament no matter what.”

As I stood there in the huddle after practice breathing heavily with sweat dripping from my body I listened as Coach Hegsted gave one of his motivational talks. He was talking about how we have no reason to hold anything back or wait for someone else to get the job done. As I stood there, with coach’s voice in the back ground, I thought to myself he is right this is probably going to be the last time I pad up with this group of guys and play with them. It was this day that I had learned a very valuable life lesson that I had never thought of before. I had played football every single year that I possibly could starting with that NYFL league in elementary.

The first time on a football field and i was very hyped about it cause i got to play and the coach put me as starter because i was the biggest one on the field. The very first play we got sacked but are left lineman didn't stop the ball they got pushed over and we got sacked. The ball was on the 25 yard line and we were trying to get to the fifteen yard line to get the first down and we were short 10 yards but we could still get cause if we work hard you play hard.

I have been playing soccer since before I could even walk. In fact, I joined my first soccer team at the age of five. Soccer is something I have always loved and been passionate about. When I was on the co-ed recreation league teams I was one of the only girls on my team, so I had to compete with boys who doubted me and thought I was weak. I worked hard during practice and out of practice to become better and, eventually, I became more aggressive than them.

Starting high school I was very excited for all the things that were ahead of me. One of my most favorite things about starting high school is getting to be able to play football. Football has been apart of my life since i was just a little 8 year old. Football is my passion, but i also have a strong passion for helping others. So why not help other athletes like myself and pursue the sports medicine field.