Personal Narrative: My Football Tournament

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.

From before day one, all our minds were set. This was the year to win a State Championship. I can’t exactly explain it, but right from the start I knew we were going to do it. I was never so sure about anything in my life and I never doubted it once.

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.

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.

So I did and got the tackle and we were all pumped. We lined up for defense and since I was a right side linebacker I was told to make sure the running back did not get past me when they snapped the ball I watched and waited. He went left and I had to wait and watch for a reverse and by time I saw there was no reverse our left side linebacker had already tackled the running back. Next play same thing happened then on third down and four yards to go they went right and I was the first one to hit the running back and as I was tackling him our cornerback came up and hit him as well since the ball was wet from rain the running back fumbled and our corner jumped on the ball and it was our ball on the opposite twenty-four yard line. We lined up for offense and I lined up behind the quarterback and was ready to receive the handoff and i got excellent blocking and I ran the ball in to the end zone 8-0 us. Then we ran a quarterback sneak and scored for the two point conversion. The rest of the first quarter was spent alternating between offense and defense. They would get the ball and fumbled, punt it away, turn it over on downs. Then we would get the ball and have to punt it or fumble or turn it over on downs. The first of four eight minute quarters ended with the score still

September 27 is a day that I will always remember, no matter how old I get. McClain was competing against Miami Trace in a SCOL boy’s soccer match. It is always a close game when Greenfield plays Trace, but this year it was different than the previous few. The two teams were so evenly matched, even more so than than in the past. There were twenty minutes remaining in the second half and the Panthers were winning 1-0, but the game was even more highly

In the first inning we were on defense and we had our ideal positions out on the field. I was on first base and the coach's son William was the pitcher. All the other positions were filled with other athletes mostly dedicated to baseball or another sport. We had a great start to the game with an easy pop out. Although the next hit was wacked into left field getting him an easy double. We retired the last two batters with easy

It was a brisk fall evening, and my seventh grade youth football team and I had traveled to Aberdeen to play the undefeated Chiefs. We had worked harder and longer than we ever had that week to show that we were a threat in the league and ascend from our third place ranking. We knew it was not going to be easy; the Chiefs’ team had the fastest running back in our division, and they had scored more total points per game than any other team in the Southeast Idaho Youth Football League. The field was neater and greener than we had expected in this town. It was a great day for football, and I was with all of my best friends. I knew going in that it was going to be a learning experience whether we won or lost that night because the Chiefs were

We were playing Fond du lac, and they were good. So our teams gets on the ice and we start playing. We score two goals right away in the beginning. They were starting to get mad. After we scored to make it 3-0 they started sending out kids that would hit our players. Our team then started to retaliate. So we were getting penalties and before you knew it the score was 2-3. We started to realize that it wasn’t worth retaliating. There was about two minutes left in the game, and we played shutdown defense. Nobody was getting a shot on our goalie. The game ended 3-2 us so we were on our way to

Pennsauken had only lost once earlier that year to my team, The Braves, while we were undefeated and I could tell that they didn’t want to lose again. After the opening Kickoff, I was in at Defensive Tackle. Every play I felt like it went quiet all I could hear was the beating of my heart, the motivational cheers from my family and the blow of the whistle. The game started with an interception on 3rd down and now the Braves were on offense. Our running back D.J. awarded the Pennsauken defense with a big run for a Touchdown on first down. He came to back to the sideline shuddering from the cold and panting like a dog. The whole team thought that we were gonna be winning the game, for the first half at least.

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.

Coach calls a two which means it's a fake punt. Instead of snapping it to the runner the center snaps it to me and I am forced to punt the ball away. I kick the ball and it almost gets blocked. On the return the return man beats the majority of the team and it is up to me to take a good angle and make the play. As I take the angle the runner goes past me and then, “Boom!” I get hit. I am on the ground blacked out. When I wake up I immediately feel like I am in a different world. It is almost as if the world was a blur and I couldn’t hear anything. I also have ringing in my ears and excruciating pain in my head and a decent

​The world spun as I got up off the ground, it felt like someone had hit me in the back of the head with a sledge hammer. I knew the play had moved down the field but I could not find it. The seconds seemed to take years to pass me by. I think I spun in a circle three or four times to find the huddle forming around the goal line for the field goal attempt. I half jogged, half stumbled my to the huddle barely keeping myself on my feet. I put my hand in the dirt, and watched the ball sail through the uprights. I miraculously made it back to the sideline, where the trainer could see that I was struggling just to stand. She made me sit on the bench and put me

I got dressed ready to play the best team in Ohio but we thought we were better. We were all ready to play the game fair and square.

We were all very upset. The first play they tried to throw the ball and we patted the ball down. Next they just tried to run the ball. We kept stopping them in the back field. It was fourth down and they were going to punt the ball. Logan and I went to the very right side of the line. When the kicker said, “hutt,” we all went to try and block the punt. Logan and I got through the blocks and blocked the punt. I was looking for the ball and realized that we were in the end zone. I saw the ball, I jumped for it and charlie was already on it. It was a touchdown. Everyone was so