Personal Narrative: The Tennessee Future Stars

I was completely dishearten at this point. 65 minutes in the game, my coach told me to warm up. I was thrilled and nervous, but ready to play. At minute 70, ten minutes before the game to end the ball went out of bounds, the referee stopped the game as my coach signaled for a substitution, and I entered the pitch. I played my first ten minutes of High School varsity soccer and I made the most of them.

Jerry Hix, a former Permian football player, rewatches his football games from high school to relive the fame that just one game brought. The videos show both the good and bad moments from the games, yet even after remembering the things he wanted to forget, Hix claimed, “I’d give anything to go back out there” (277). He continues to go to every Permian football game, chasing the lost feelings from high school. This sensation is what the players get to feel every game, but in some aspects that is the only good thing about football for them. Ivory Christian was one of the star players on the Permian team of 1988, but throughout Friday Night Lights, his relationship with football represents a paradox.

I worked for goodwill. They contract out to other businesses to help disabled, special needs an felons. Sometimes it is hard for certain people in life to get jobs. It is called Rock-Tenn, they recycle trash. They ran the trash down a conveyor belt.

It felt as if i was just coasting along. That year, I earned the team MVP position and all state, all league, and all conference titles. Teams knew that when they had to play our team, they had to try and shoot through a wall. I have witnessed coaches talked strategy on trying to get into my head, get the ball around me, and even try and take me physically out of the game. I was fully dedicating myself and time to the sport, breathing, eating, sleeping waterpolo.

In fact I barely even got in with practice squad at practice, I was small and my body just wasn 't fit enough for me to play any position. At the end of my second JV season in tenth grade, the varsity coach came and talked to us and called out the names of who he wanted to move up. I knew my name wasn’t going to be called but I was still

I start to ask coach if he could put me in, but he keeps saying that I don't have enough experience. I'm about to walk out when he says that the star running back got hurt and I need you to sud for him tomorrow. The next day came I got dressed and I was ready to play.

I knew that everyone was nervous, and I couldn’t prevent that. For most of these people they were not going to go to any college, and yet I still have to decide which one out of the 30 something scholarships I got offered. We started walking through warm-ups, they went by way faster than I expected. Everything felt fine until I saw the other team, St. Ignatius. Their whole team had at least a 6 foot average height.

Everything was going well until I faced my first real incident my junior year. Our team was successful during the last couple years, however it was not without sacrifice. Practices were long and grueling and our bodies were pushed to their physical limit, but the cheer of the crowd and the glowing feeling of winning made it all worth it. It turns out however, that the aches and pains of practice were not the only sacrifice to be

I thought I was going to make the team easily. After the tryout, a few days later the coaches sent a email out to all the parents showing who made the team and who didn’t. I read the list name by name, the farther down the list I went the more worried I got. Once I hit the last name I was devastated, I didn’t see

In August 2013 I had a shot to be great. I was a sophomore on the Junior Varsity football team at my high school. This scrimmage was different than my past scrimmages, I was starting for the first time since 8th grade. I spent countless hours in the weight room preparing my body this season. As soon as the scrimmage started, I knew my work was going to pay off.

“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.

I suppose I was just used to somehow getting what I wanted without any real effort. I’ve been considered a “tall kid” since elementary school and always made the team in middle school. However, that night, I completely embarrassed myself, I missed every shot I threw up, I didn’t make a single play in the scrimmages, and was out of breathe for all three hours. That night, I lied to my father and said I did okay. I didn’t do okay; and that was only the first day of tryouts, on the second and final day of tryouts my name was the first called for cuts, the ultimate failure.

When I was 7 my only goal was to be a level 5 gymnast so I could compete with the “big girls”. I worked my butt off in the gym 6 hours a week to achieve this goal. I was in the best shape i 've ever been in and was having the time of my life. Shortly after finally getting there my coach stopped taking us to competitions, and I was restricted to going to the gym only one hour a week. Shortly after I had lost most of my strength and skills and was devastated.

I started to practice at my house—it was the only hoop available for me at the time. Everyday, I would go outside and just shoot as many shots as I can so, I could make my form better. A few weeks of practicing, I started to see progress in my form—I made more shots than usual. Since I thought I was getting better, I decided to ask my parents if they could put me in a basketball team. My parents agreed without any hesitation.

I also had to get stronger so when someone would try to body on the field, they would just bounce off. Every day I would try to run around the whole field in less than a minute for an hour. For the other two hours, I would work out so that my cabs and thighs would become stronger and also so that the upper part of my body would become stronger. After a month, I met my goals, I would run around the field in thirty eight seconds and I could outrun everyone on the field and I could get the ball harder and no one could push me from the ball when they would body me. Even though I had met my goals, that didn’t mean I was going to stop practicing.