The Football Of High School

It was my senior year of high school football and all I could do was sit on the bench with an injury. It was so frustrating because all I wanted to do was be on the field playing with my brothers like I have since freshman year. I was just so happy to be on the field on those Friday nights and just get to play the game made me so happy when I first started playing. Until I got a big head and started thinking about myself and what I was going do that game or how many touchdowns I was going to score that game. I stopped thinking about the team because of my success. I think this might be a lesson I needed to learn and if I did not, I would have had a big head my whole senior year and never would have saw the real reasons why I loved playing

The pressure was on. Myself as well as my middle school football team had been practicing for weeks to beat our opponent, Southport Middle School. They had beaten up the year before and it was our turn to pay them back.

it. He played left tackle for his high school football team. He became a standout guard and began

I was on the little pee wee team called the Panthers. I was only 10 years old when I first started playing for the team. At first when joining the team I was doubtful on whether or not I would be good enough to play. That moment when Coach Smith called my name I knew it was time. During that first game we were playing against the Cubs. I was wearing number 95. Then all of a sudden I found myself at the line of defense; shaking full of nerves. This was my first time on the field with a team; a team that had my back and knew that I had theirs. My family came out to my game to support me. At first that was all I could focus on was them shouting my name. I had to focus, I hit my helmet to get myself in the zone; I had seen the professional football players do that on TV so I took a chance and tried it out. I was bent over, mouth guard in, and saliva dripping out, I even growled to

Have you ever felt like you’re not good enough, not knowing just how much potential you have? One of the most salient experiences of my life was making the Island Coast High School football team, because it taught me that to succeed you must be confident in yourself. The old me would have thought, “ I’m not good enough,” because I never thought that I could compete with kids that already played football. I suppose that I always felt like i couldn’t compete with football players because whenever I would play football in eighth grade, I would not be able to keep up with them. Little did I know, all of that was about to change the day I made my way to the middle of the humid, scorching fied, staring into the eyes of North Ft. Myers Highs’ freshman football team.

Since it was my very first varsity game I was extremely nervous and scared to let my team down. On the first drive I was called out to punt from the back of our end zone. I prepared myself for the worst because our starting long snapper was injured, so my long snapper was a tight end who had never snapped before in his life. The ball ended up being snapped 3 ft over my head and about 10 ft to my left, so I sprinted to get under the ball, jumped

I jogged over to my position and began examining my opponent. He was a tall, large person. I knew that I had to use technique to be able to compete with this person because my size obviously was not enough. Driving this person back turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. Maybe it was because of my skill or maybe he just wasn’t as good as I anticipated. Play after play I was able to overpower him and have our running backs or receivers make multiple plays. The game played out in our favor and we ended up winning 28-8.

Throughout my years, I have mostly been associated with flag football. Stepping onto a football field takes a lot of guts and there was a time when I had to overcome my own doubts. Back in the Fall of 2015, my sophomore year, I was still a shrimp compared to my superior teammates. Every practice I would exhaust myself to prove my worthy to be on the team, but even more, on the field. Although I was the only player aiming to be quarterback, it did not mean I did not have to try. The second practice started, I felt rumbles within my heart. Of course Juniors and Seniors doubted my skill, that’s no surprise. I was determined to earn their respect no matter what.

I played football in high school for all 4 years. My freshmen and sophomore year I wasn't very good. I was a backup and never played. Then came along my junior year, I was still undersized and didn't start but I improved my skill greatly and I started to increase my work ethic. The off-season before my junior year I went hard in the weight room and became strong. I also lost some weight and gained some height. That's hard work in the offseason is what lead to me having a great senior year. My senior year was full of emotion, I felt tired, determined, and at the end of the season I felt sadness with no regret and the love for my brothers. The first thing we had to do to become a great team was build a brotherhood with kids who wanted to try.

Additionally, the games were segregated with the white reserved section having the best seats in the stadium. The tradition eventually ended in the mid-1960s when the schools became a part of the University Interscholastic League (UIL), which meant that the season ended before Thanksgiving. The rivalry was never the same after the end of this beloved tradition; however, in recent years there have been attempts to reignite the passion within the rivalry with the help of Nike, the athletic brand, who recently released a video on Twitter that showcased the Yates and Wheatley High School football teams and how impactful football is on both schools in their recovery from Hurricane Harvey. Although the rivalry is not as potent as it once

Finally, the day of our first game had arrived. All of us had butterflies in our stomachs. It was the type of feeling you get when you know you are well prepared for something, but you inexplicably still feel nervous. As soon as the ball was kicked first, all of the anxious feelings I had melted away and the game became quite fun. Just as the prior years, the first game had the easiest opponent to beat and my team and I had no problem securing a victory against them. The second game was a bit more of a challenge, but defeating that team was nothing we were not prepared for. The true challenge came in the third and championship game. Although we enjoyed a bye game due to our two previous victories, the other team had the advantage of some truly God-gifted athletes. In particular, number seven was a beast of a thirteen-year-old. He stood at an impressive six feet tall and he towered over us on every snap. During the first drive, we had marched the ball down the field slowly but surely and on the four-yard line we fumbled. Of course, number seven picked up the ball and ran it back for a touchdown. At halftime, our coach sat us down and had a long talk with us. Even though we were discouraged by their touchdown, we picked ourselves up and started scoring. We scored two rushing touchdowns in the third quarter and one more in the fourth quarter to secure the win. Not only did we come back from a losing

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 most important game of the year was coming up and I was ready. Everything was going perfect for me, because I was the starting QB as a freshmen at Englert High School. We were playing Joston High School the number 1 team in the nation since 1960, it was going to be a tough game because they had the number 1 ranked defense, but we had the best offense. The day before the game was just a normal day I went to school and had football practice after school. A couple weeks ago one of the other teams that we had played earlier in the year wanted another game so we decided to play them. They had been the hardest team we had played all year, we had only beat them by a last efforts field goal it hardly went in as it bounced in off the crossbar.

The next games went by so fast it was October now a month or so left in my high school football career. Just very infuriated at this moment feeling pathetic, since the back therapy I was going threw was almost over. I had a feeling that nothing was going same again this season our record was now 8-0, still not satisfied. Because we only had two games left in regular season and they were against central catholic on Oct,24th 2014 varsity football team lost Friday's home conference game against Central Catholic (Toledo, OH) by a score of 56-33. Now one more game we were 8-1, I was finally done with my physical rehab it was about time missing 8 games total.

How hard do you think high school football is? I’m in eighth grade and i was invited to play for our high school. I can tell you from personal experience that high school practices are very rough. Of course I was very honored but, it was also very different. The coaches are rough on you but it is worth it.