Reflecting On A 16 Year Football Career: The Early Years (Part I)

Football is Fun

My first memory of football is hanging out next to my brother's practices, a field tucked deep into the fall pine forests of Derry, New Hampshire.  It was right by a little round-a-bout with a baseball card store.  If you ventured far enough out into the woods away from the field, you would come upon a quiet lake. But you could never actually see it.  Whenever you would get just close enough to smell and hear the water, it would get drowned out by the yells from mom to come back.  I got a lot of poison ivy in those woods, playing catch with a green and yellow Brett Favre football I had found one day.  The dead pine needles that blanketed the ground during fall gave the whole place a mystical feeling.  It was there, playing for the Youngsville Hawks, between the trees and near the water, that I fell in love with football.

At that time I was just finishing being home schooled and I was a year young for my grade but taller than everyone.  In the Pop Warner system, where sports were done by age and weight, I had to wait a whole extra year to play while my friends did.  So when I finally was able to put on the pads instead of climbing on the dirt hills and playing on the tires, I was an animal.  Being taller than everyone else, my coach started by putting me at offensive line.  But I had this gut feeling, even knowing very little about football, that I was supposed to play running back.  So here I was, seven years old, asking my coach to give me a shot.  He said no, but I was persistent.  Finally, he obliged and gave me my shot.  I got the ball and ran right into someone.  But I kept driving my feet, struggling to stand and move forward, so that it took the whole defense to finally bring me down.  I thought I had failed. So I came slowly back to the huddle with my head down and said, "Sorry, Coach." But he replied, "No, no, I liked what I saw. We're gunna give it to you again." The next play I burst right through the whole defense, not even touched. 

Those first few years are a blur of forearm bruises, orange slices, and a lot of fun. I will always have a distinct memory of blitzing off the edge and blindsiding the quarterback while an opposing coach yelled, "Someone block 34!" I will also always remember my first touchdown. A quick 20-something yard scamper.  When I scored, I actually got on my knee, bowed my head and prayed a simple and out of breath prayer, "thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou."  I still don't know if I had ever seen someone do that on TV. I just thought that's what you do when you score: thank God.

In Youngsville, I played two years of Mighty-Mites (the smallest division) and one year of Pee-Wee (the middle division), from 3rd-5th grade.  Before sixth grade, we moved back down to Oklahoma and joined the Jenks school district.  Jenks was a large public school and in the local football league they already had four teams for kids in the school district.  Most of them had been around and playing together for several years and they were really good.  I just so happened to end up on the new expansion team, Jenks Silver, to be coached by my dad.  Jenks Silver had as much heart and they didn't have size.  We were very small and had a lot of brand new players so we didn't do very well over those two years we were together.  We were basically the real life Little Giants. But I didn't ever let it get to me or even seem to notice.  Of course I wanted to win, but I remember my teammates more and having a lot of fun with them at practice, doing bear crawls in our crappy, sticker covered section of the field. I remember Jordan Mook, the hard hitting rebellious kids who probably already had gauges. I remember Andrew Blair and Ross, the two smallest kids on the team who tried harder and hit harder than anybody.  I remember Marty, the big teddy bear who we nicknamed "The Grizz," to try and toughen him up. 

One time we were playing Union Silver, the biggest bunch of freaks in the league, some with as much facial hair as I do now.  And mean too. They were like Iceland from Mighty Ducks 2.  Well it was a cold and rainy game and we were getting killed, and one time I went out to block a guy and got hit really hard. He hit me so hard that he literally hit the snot out of me.  It really hurt but all I could do was laugh.  It was a lot of fun.  It was also during these years with Silver that I was introduced to a big part of the game of football: injury.  Both years I suffered from a broken right ankle that kept me on crutches during most of middle school.  I mean middle school is bad enough, am I right? In 7th grade I actually had a girl break up with me because, "She didn't want to be known as the girl dating the kid on crutches."   To this day, that same ankle looks like its permanently sprained, the pin is still in from the two place break in 7th grade, and I will probably get surgery on it now that the season is over. But I never once thought about not coming back. I was in this game for the long haul. 

These first five years, from 3rd-7th grade, 7-11 years old, was when football was pure and innocent.  It was really fun and I will always look back on these years with a smile on my face.  Anytime I see a mighty-mites team out practicing somewhere, I smile and think, "That's what its all about."  One of the big themes we called upon this year was to remember what it was like to play at that age and have fun playing the game we love.  That's part of what made this final year so special. Remembering that feeling of being a little kid, getting dressed before the game without a care in the world, except being excited to go play a game with your friends. As I got older, so many things got in the way of that and you had to make the effort to remember. But that's for next time. 

Seth

Part II: School Ball - The Thrill of Competition and the Agony of Defeat