Personal Narrative: A Football Team

It all started in 7th grade, our football team was at the time undefeated and we were in our second to last game. We were up by quite a bit and our team was feeling sanguine, our coach didn’t put too much thought into it, and called a run up the middle with our star running back Michael Lundy. He Got the ball and ran for Three short yards then suddenly tripped over a pile of angry, impassioned, irritable teenage boys. Michael had landed wrong and you could see by his expressions he was hurt, his dad came on the field and helped carry him off. We were forced to continue the game without Michael, which wasn’t all that bad because there were only three minutes left in the game. We the Philomath 7th grade braves had won our second to last game

Leadership is a key role in all team sports, if you don’t have the leadership odds are is that your not going to have good team chemistry and not an very good season as well. My junior year was a big time learning curve for myself, which is why I am writing this essay to you, to tell you why I believe that I am part of the cream of the crop for our football program.

Well for me, football is my top favorite sport. When I was in school, I had a problem with authority, and teachers would often make me mad. I tried hard to control my aggression, frustration, and anger. I jumped into drugs and cigarettes to fights and gangs. Because nothing I tried worked, I went to football tryouts. I felt happy and excited for the first time in a long time; I eventually got on the field and ran and ran.

It was a very warm and tense place in the gymnasium of the Alpena High School. A group of freshman and sophomore baseball players were waiting for the words you wanted to hear which was “Congratulations” or the not so good news of “Sorry” from the coach deciding if you made the team. Personally, at the start of baseball tryouts I thought to myself it’s going to be a toss up to see if I would make the team having a 50/50 chance. I was nervous for the most part because there were an abundace of upperclassman also trying out for the team that were on it last year. There were twenty-seven people trying out for fifteen spots to play JV baseball.

In the bottom of the inning, with the chance to win, I would make the first plate appearance of the inning with hopes to start it off with a hit. Before our at-bats, Coach Sullivan talked to the team saying, “This is the moment you have all worked for. This is where all that extra work will finally pay off. This is a moment you will remember for the rest of your lives. Now GO GET ‘EM!” So I ran in the dugout, grabbed my helmet and bat, and began getting ready for my at-bat. As I was preparing Coach Sullivan came over and gathered up the next few batters, including myself, and said, “Right now! This is your time! Go do your best and good things will happen!” I was as prepared as ever when I finally stepped up to the plate to start the inning. As the pitch came towards me I swung the bat and felt a POP. I looked up to see the ball soar into the outfield and land as a base hit. The next batter was Ben Beis who, on the first pitch, watched a ball in the dirt which got past the catcher allowing me to advance to second base. Ben then did a sacrifice bunt moving me from second base to third

We were on our way to Indianapolis for Nationals. My friend Brett and I stayed up until three in the morning waiting for my father to come pick us up. My dad arrived around three-thirty in the morning. We arrived at Victory Field around eight-thirty that morning. Victory Field is where the Indianapolis Indians play. They’re the triple-a team for the Cleveland Indians. My dad had to go to a coaches meeting so Brett and I went and walked around the stadium. Eventually, when the meeting was over we headed to our hotel. Once we got to the hotel we checked in and went to our game. Our first game, we faced a team from Indiana. They couldn’t handle us and we won 27-4. Our second game we beat another Indiana team 8-2. It was now bracket time and we

We practiced everyday nonstop and won game after game. We became infamous to the other teams for our ability to decimate our competition. Everything was going well until the semifinals when I was called up to bat. I never had to bat in any of the previous games because there was a turnover before I even had a chance to bat. I was completely dumbfounded, I double checked with the coach to make sure I was truly next, I then asked the batting coach and he said the same. I nervously put on my gloves and helmet as I watched the previous player who had stuck out come back to the dugout with his head down. It was the last inning and there were players on first, second, and third. A tied game between us and the White Sox. I slowly dragged myself to home plate and stood there. I raised the bat behind my head and held it firmly just as my batting coach said. I concentraded my breathing as sweat began to collect on my fore head. We had two outs and all I had to do was tap the ball and we would go on to the finals and then glory. The pitcher gazed took a deep breath and paused. Then in a blink of an eye he

Football is back as the first preseason game was played last Thursday. With football coming back, so does fantasy football. Like a lot of people (myself included), you’re scouring the internet for rankings. There’s plenty of rankings out there, but none of them tell you where to take a defense. I am going to present my strategy.

Call it failure to capitalize on an opportunity or failure to commit 100% effort to my team; both would be true and both failures lead to lessons learned my junior year on the high school varsity soccer team. From the time I was little, with my dad as my coach, success came easily and failure was a concept not easily grasped. Playing on the JV team my first two years of high school was pretty much a given, and in hindsight, I realize how valued I was on the team. I started most of the games both freshman and sophomore year and played a significant amount. As my junior year was approaching, I knew this was not going to be the case. Desperately wanting to make the team, lots of training and hard work was how a majority of my summer free time

We rushed out onto the field for the last time. The chilly rain was pouring down. The field was soaked. With every step I took there was a sloshing sensation in my cleat. I put my game face on. No ball would get by me. We were going to score. We were going to win. For the next twenty five minutes, I watched a back and forth in the midfield. Several times I stopped the ball and passed it forward to Kaylee, only for the pass to be intercepted before we were able to score. And then, just as the clock was running down to under five minutes left, I stopped a hard pass just outside our circle. I dribbled for several

I was an incoming freshman, two weeks prior to my first day of high school, and I was terrified. I knew that I loved the sport of football, however I had heard stories from my brother about how tough Stepinac’s freshman football coach was. Everything that I was told was true. One of the coaches great lessons that he taught me was that a hardworking disciplined team is typically more successful than a team that has all of the talent in the world, but is not disciplined and does not work hard. That summer was the hardest that I had ever worked up to that point to start in a football game. The hard work never paid off, and I left at the end of that season defeated. I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t fast enough, and I wasn’t strong enough. I had only played in two of the games, one, for a snap when

The pitcher let the first pitch fly, I let it pass me as it bounced on the plate. The catcher stopped the ball and tossed back like she had thousands of times. The next pitch flew in. It was half way to me when I swung, I knew it was the one. The bat connected with the ball in the lower right corner. I didn’t even look before I bolted towards the first. I turned my head and saw the ball was anywhere near second yet, so I turned and ran even faster towards second. Before I knew it the ball had gotten into third, stopping me at second, but getting all three of my teammates in. I looked over and saw my parents cheering, and a smile grew on my face. The next batter knocked me in easily and we were up fifteen to six. I knew we could keep

Once I released the baseball my heart dropped and I hoped for the best. It was one of the most stressful moments i’ve ever had in baseball. But first we should go back to when all this first started. It was a perfectly normal saturday we had a tournament like most weekend over the summer but not until I got to the field and and everyone was talking about the game did I over hear someone say this is the state tournament. This tournament ranked us in Illinois. We played the first two teams with ease we were up by five and they couldn’t seem to keep up, but the last game of the tournament was us versus the Plainfield Tornadoes. I remember that team very distinctly because of the circumstances I was in. I had pitched the first two games we played

I look at the pitcher and remember the situation, bases loaded, 2 outs, down by 2 in the bottom of the seventh. The dirt crunched under my metal spikes as I prepare for the pitcher to deliver a pitch. He releases the ball and it flies from his hand towards the catcher. The catcher squeezes his glove but is surprised to find that there is no ball where he expected there to be. Instead the ball is flying straight forward, towards the center field fence. As I watched the ball soar over the center fielder’s head I trot the bases and halt at second base. We had scored three runs. Just enough to win the game.

I looked up at the scoreboard and the time read 8 minutes left. As I looked at the scoreboard I felt a jolt of energy enter my body. I had felt as if a fire was lit under me. My eyes opened as if I had just seen a ghost. I remember thinking to myself, “how can we lose this game?” I made a promise to myself that I would win 4 state titles while being at Battlefield High School. This was my sophomore year of high school and I had already won one state title, how could I give up now and let my dreams be crushed, I worked too hard for that to happen. In that moment I knew there was only one result I was going to walk off the field with, and that was with a win and another State Championship. I took a deep breath and thought to myself, “My team needs energy. They need a leader.”