Personal Essay: The Football Game

September 20, 2011 was the day that everything changed. Practice that day was long and excruciatingly hot. My coach did not let me take a rest as I was the only full back we had at the time. Hit after hit, it started to add up and my world was spinning but coach told me to keep going, so I did. The very next snap my world got wrecked. My form became lazy because I was beyond exhausted and dehydrated, my head lead my attempt to break the tackle and the kid making the tackle lead with his head as well. Just like that my body went numb, everything was dark, my eyes were open but I could not see. I had no sense of where I was and where I was going. My name left me. At this point I did not know if I was dead or alive. This was the last time I was ever able to strap up and play the game of football. This is what happens to the millions of kids who play football on a daily basis. Somebody was there telling them to go back in even when they were showing early signs of a concussion. The athlete takes one more hit straight to the head out of poor form or exhaustion and then everything goes from bad to worse. These events take place at such a young age that the long term side effects can be fatal.

Last spring the Poland varsity baseball team made it to the state quarterfinals, and I was lucky enough to be a part of it. Before the season started we knew that our team was going to be special. Then was the season went on we showed it. Game after game we blew teams out, twenty to nothing, fifteen to nothing, we were a juggernaut. We had every tool at our advantage, we had hitting fielding and pitching. When our hitting wasn’t doing so well our defense picked them up, and when our fielding wasn’t doing well our hitting picked them up. We were a very hard team to beat. As the regular season came to an end our record was twenty-three to two. Then playoffs came around, and that’s when we really started to hit our stride. The first game of playoffs

Failing to make to the JV soccer team has been one of most impactful moments of my life, and it has changed the way I approach athletics and life outside of sports.

Football is a game of passion, a time when nothing else matters and the only thing that matters is going out there having fun and fighting for the guy next to you. Football has always been something that I loved and had a wild passion for. I’ve made friendships and memories to last a life time and I can always be grateful that football did that for me. Now of course I’ve had some bad memories during football as well, I remember walking out of the film room on the last day of spring ball and having Coach Antle grab me and say “Gage, I think I want to try you at a new position, I want to put you at defensive end. We need you more there and we think you can really excel there.” I remember being so furious, I had played linebacker ever since I could remember and now the last day of spring ball my senior year everything was about to change.

It was half-way through the second quarter in the semifinals, and the Sun Valley Vikings were up by 14. They were on our own 10-yard line, and they were handing it off to one of their biggest and best players, Jack Krump, up the middle. I was in at safety, and I ran up to tackle him at the five-yard line but he came trucking through I just bounced right off of him like a wall. I heard the crowd cheering, so I could tell he scored a touchdown. They kicked the field goal and it was, good. We then ran into formation to receive the kickoff.

heart. I have been a loyal supporter of my local team since I was a

It was the seventh game of the regular season, we were winning each game by a margin of 30 or more points; we were invincible. At the time this team was no big rival of ours and we thought nothing of the game beforehand. The game started, and we were winning, like usual. Then out of nowhere the other team started to score points,

I played for the Williamstown Braves when I was six years old and I was in the 70’s A-team and played offensive and defensive tackle. The day had to have been the coldest of the year, and I was about to play the South Jersey Championship football game against Pennsauken.

It was dead silent as the ball sat in the air and as if time had stopped. It was December of 2015, I was 13, my team and I was playing for 3rd place in the Colt Classic Tournament. It was a night game at Barrington Station High School. We were playing the Barrington Colts, which was weird considering they are playing for 3rd in their own tournament that they were hosting, before the game, I was talking to some of my teammates Aaron Pattis, Stephen Harris, Bradley Jenkins, Ayden Anderson and I were talking before the game, going into that game we speculated that we had this game in the bag easily as a result of how well our team was playing. Little did we know, we had another problem coming.

It was a Wednesday night during the summer when something happened to me that I will never forget. My volleyball team was in Hutchinson for a summer league. I was not able to play because I have Rheumatoid Arthritis so I went to support them. I was ecstatic because we had gone undefeated that night. While they were playing, storms were building up just outside of Hutch. When I walked out to my truck, I noticed that the storms had come closer and closer. Also while I was walking, it started to lightly sprinkle. When I left the Salthawk Activity Center, it started to downpour. Little did I know, my night was about to be turned upside down.

As all my teammates ran up to congratulate me on my 55 yard touchdown I realized that we were still in this game. As I stood in the end zone, I finally started to realized what I had just done. I had finally proven myself to everyone including my teammates and my coach. Perhaps most importantly of all, however, I had proven to myself that I had what it took to play on the varsity level. It was something I had yet to prove before that game and is something that I will never

Lisa called my mom and told her what happened. My mom wasn't upset; she asked if it was serious and Lisa said no because I was still playing it off like I wasn't in pain. Lisa asked me three times if I wanted her to take me to Urgent Care and I kept saying no. Kaelyn’s dad, Mike, is a firefighter/paramedic so he took a look at my foot and he didn’t think there was anything seriously wrong so I just started icing

Playing football has had the most impact on the development of my character. I started playing football when I was 5 years old. Playing football has taught me many valuable lessons. While playing football, I have better understood the values of hard work. Football taught me that the only way to succeed in something is by working harder than anyone else. Football has also taught me that when working with a team, everybody has an important role and if one person slacks off it hurts the entire team. There is no “I” in team and teamwork is a valuable life lesson. Whenever teammates are focused on individual accomplishments, instead of the team’s success, the team as a whole does not perform as well. I have learned through this that when you

With the game tied 6-6 that is when I went into my own little zone and was in my moment. The crowed was electrified and cheering us on. I thought about all the hard work the coaches put us through doing two a days and keeping us late after a hard practice, spending all of that time and hard work just for this one little moment when the game was on the line. Back to reality our quarterback had started the play and it looked like it was going nowhere and we might have to got into overtime. Then after about 6 crazy seconds he threw the ball to our halfback and he broke a couple tackles and the somehow stretched across the goal line by about 2 inches and we had taken the lead 8-6 with 52 seconds to go. When the game clock hit 00:00 for the first time in our schools history the football team had beaten Aberdeen and none of us could believe it. This was a special moment.

I can remember two plays vividly. The first was when I played fullback. It was third and long which is more times than not a passing situation, but this time the coach put his faith in me to make the first down. I remember getting the hand off and was running to the left. I got through the hole and saw a defender. I lowered my shoulder and ran over him, but I wasn’t to the first down yet. All of a sudden there were four people on me and I had my mind made up that I wasn’t going to let my team down, so I kept my legs driving carrying people and finally made it to the first down. Right there I knew that I could be a great player. The second play was a defensive play. The opposing team was up by three points and time was running out. The coach yelled from the sideline “We need a play,” so I took it upon myself to be the playmaker. The ball was snapped, it was a toss to my left. I saw the running back sprinting out and I took my pursuit angle. I met him head up and he started to go down and in the back of my mind I heard my coach’s voice and that made me do something I had never done. I stripped the ball out of his hand and ran for a touchdown. My team won. The next phase of my football career was about to begin now, middle school.