Personal Narrative: Football Team

It was opening night for our football team, a chilly night in September against one of our rivals, the Nickerson Panthers. The stands were packed like a can of sardines. Our team had been ruling the scoreboard all night, but now the panthers were in the red zone threatening to score. Three years ago we wouldn’t have had a chance against this team, but now we had the upper hand. Through the weightlifting program and improvement of team building, success is inevitable. Our football team is a great example of how hard work and great leadership not only pull a group of kids, but also a whole community together.

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.

Stephen is a senior transferred to WCSU from Miami University in Ohio, it is better known for the home of the famous NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. That one fact made it a little easier to bond and converse with Stephen as I am a huge football fan and he happens to coach football. It wasn’t Stephen’s idea to transfer but his parents, they decided it was too expensive for him to go to school so far from home. He therefore transfer here and now lives in his parents basement in Ridgefield CT, and he commutes to school. Stephen is majoring in media studies and he hopes to do something in the field of being a promoter or a publicist. Stephen coaches high school football mainly to freshman's and he also is part of a baseball league. Stephen also loves to sing even though he claims he isn’t so good at it.

Workouts were tough but practice was tougher. Soreness from weightlifting was a part of the routine. The heat seemed to be unbearable, but Coach pushed

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

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

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.

The 1st half of our game against Eagan didn't go so well, we were down 13-0 heading into the locker room at halftime. Losing the game was on everyone's mind considering we were on a 2 game losing streak, but I wasn't going to let that happen. I did my best to inspire my teammates and spark some energy for the 2nd half. I walked into the locker room and started physically lifting teammates heads up. During this time I was giving different thoughts of encouragement to different teammates, I could tell our starting quarterback was pretty upset after throwing a few interceptions and being scoreless up to this point. He was a sophomore, so knowing that I told him that there was no pressure on him, and that no matter how he played our team, the

During the second semester of my sophomore I started coaching the U-12 soccer league through the Joliet Park District with my sister’s boyfriend Ryan. Ryan and I co-coached this team and we had the help one of the player’s father so we had an extra hand. I was extremely nervous because there wasn’t a huge age difference between kids and myself. The first day Ryan took the lead in coaching and I tried my best to reinforce what he was trying to explain. As our first season went on I started getting a little too close to some of the players and the impacted how I would talk to just those players alone. To me that was not a big deal because what is the point of coaching if you don’t to know the team you are with right? Well that blew up in my face when it

It has been three days since the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards began and I'm still surviving behind the facade. I created this entity because I wasn't comfortable with new people or breaking of my comfort zone. I have never been away from home and surrounded by 99 strangers before. To other campers, I'm sassy and love the Kardashians. I would crack jokes and try to get by. Behind the facade, I was frightened and refused to leave my comfort zone. I refused to utilize the opportunity. I just wanted to get the camp over with. I never fit in with straight guys so I never bothered to interact with the guys. The girls loved the facade and at that point, I did as well. It was the only thing that kept me safe and made me feel strong. On the fourth

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.

From gaming to the field be sure to always be on my team, I'm not afraid to lead us to victory and push you to your full potential. If you know me at all you would know I'm a team player just look at what I play. I play sports that involve a team not just myself. I love being team leader but I’m always ok if someone else wants to be in charge. Who I am is someone who isn’t afraid to lead but won't support the next guy to lead because I want to strive to make the greatness show in others.

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

one evening after a long day of running drills, suicides, and general exercises at football practice the cavalry clustered tightly into a huddle from there we prayed for a better tomorrow and a successful practice together as one team as normal, this was also a time where everyone has a time to reflect and criticize and critique ones performance one person at a time on a run or pass route from the play book given to us from Head Coach Irby. The one-on-one conversation between another football player, “Lucky” the quarterback, had a few words to share to about my blocking ability as an offensive linemen (now generally I’m supposed to be a linebacker because of my size and speed.) Jamarl! You need to block! “witcho big ass,” man. Last game I got