Personal Narrative: Football And Its Impact On My Life

I was nine-years old in 1952, and it was on a brisk August Sunday afternoon when my Dad took me to my very first 49ers game at Kezar Stadium for an exhibition contest against the Cardinals, from Chicago. As I remember the weather was overcast and the temperature a cool 60 degrees.

''Football.'' Every one loves the game of football. I mean how can you not like football its just so much fun. To play and or watch . It's just so much excitement. Playing football I set a lot of goals . And I also achieved most of those goals. It wasn't the easiest thing to do but its really worth it . The reason I say this because it a workout. Your constantly moving every other second. So its really a good work out for teens. But my goal for football was to make a touchdown every game. The reason I wonted to score every game cause I knew that I was going to get some money every time I score. And another goal I set was to make a tackle every game . It didn't have to be a big tackle just a tackle. That's all I ask for myself every game . I

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.

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.

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.

My stomach tightened. I had never played free safety before. The ball was snapped, and I watched as the tailback widened out to receive the pitch. Never had I felt such an adrenaline rush.

I was lucky enough to have him by my side for all 17 years of my life that I’ve lived. He’s truly a role model and has been through many obstacles and had to overcome adversity. On January 25th of this year, my mom died in a car accident. She was a diabetic and was under a lot of stress. After dropping my dad off at the hospital for work she had low blood sugar and ended up having a heart attack behind the wheel. That took a toll on me. It was the worst day of my life. I never pictured myself growing up without having both a mom and a dad. It hit me so hard that I didn’t want to go to school again and i was strongly pondering quitting football. My whole football team wanted to be there for me and I’d have to say thats one of the reasons i didn’t quit. The biggest reason i stuck with it is because I knew my mom would want me to. She knows that since i was little i’ve wanted to be a football player so now, i do it in her name. Moments like these in my life have made me the strong, hard working individual that I am right now. Last year, during my junior season in the Spring game I tore my rotator cuff and my labrum on my right shoulder completely. I had surgery and now I am healed and ready to get after it my senior year. So far, I’ve been talking to schools like Illinois, Illinois State, Arkansas State, Central Arkansas, Idaho, Miami, and

As the bells rang out Edgar gleefully said , “ Hurry up James we need to get there in time to be picked, or else we’re gonna be stuck with the nerds out in the field watching!”, as he ran out to the field toward the road where we would be playing tackle football.

I could hear it, the bell, signaling a touchdown. Except this time it wasn’t one of my teammates, it was me. Oh how I had dreamt about hearing that bell it was the ultimate sensory experience. I knew at that moment that there was a reason you never stopped believing you could do something.

I never expected my life to turn out this way!! 2020 Darren Clayton enters the NFL draft to contend against top players most teams wanted. I was surprised that I had made it that far.Now imam take you back to my childhood. I was only 10 years old in 2010 I wasn’t really a football lover, I was mostly a basketball fan. I mainly played basketball and watched it more than football. I never played football in my life the only sports I played was basketball and baseball but I never pursued it to the fullest it was just something I would do in the mean time to kill sometime in elementary school and middle school. In middle school I got curious about football so I joined the flag football team and played at an tournament against other people. At the tournament we played three teams, we only won

“Football is like life - it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority” (vince lombardi) For me football started during the seventh grade, and is with me to this day, it take countless hours and many bruises to have a chance of succeeding on just a single play but what i think you must have in football and in life to succeed at your dream is perseverance.

Nine years ago I watched my very first football game, and I was fascinated by the quote from Vince Lombardi, “Football is like life, it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.”So the succeeding year, I requested if I could do football and my grandpa said to me “Son if you want to play football, play on the line, and play on defense it is going to take dedication and determination, and you have to practice every day, do calisthenics every day, and most of all learn about how to play on the line of scrimmage.”

Sports have always been a passion of mine since I was young. I have always been fascinated by all kinds of different athletes and have always wanted to be one as well. In 7th grade I had the opportunity to engage in a sport which was soccer. The experience was amazing and it made me realize I wanted to do more. Next year when I was in the 8th grade I wanted to do more than just soccer. I was never good at basketball or baseball, so those were out of my possibilities. All that was left then was track and field. I had never been a fan of just running, so I was unsure of the chances of me wanting to do this sport, but I was determined to try it. Later on in the year when track and field was coming closer day by day I found out a shocking piece of information. Track was not all about running, there was also a field part of it where you throw items such as shot put and discus. I didn’t know what event I should choose than; running or throwing. All my friends were doing running and I realized I had a tough decision on my hands.

I was never an athletic guy, so when I joined track, I was incredible—incredibly bad. I scored no points freshman and sophomore year. But I persisted because I loved the team, my community. We worked hard, pushing through the pain of practices, sharing stories of success, and bringing each other up through times of failure. We were brothers born from vomit, sweat, and tears.

I was unaccustomed to the lack of success I was experiencing my freshman year of college. Being from College Station, Texas, I was the star athlete. But the speed of the best athlete from College Station is much different than the speed of the fastest kid from Houston, Trinidad, New York or any other place to top-rated track recruits in the SEC might come from. My days of being the most talented were clearly over. I had played soccer, football, and ran track all at a high level in high school. Naturally, I thought that if I focused on track I would get much faster, and though I was seeing improvement from the