And often found contempt for us.
So on we hied to lesser gods, who treat us less as clods
And more like men
Who would be kings a little while." Ray Bradbury
Cue the music! It is indeed a happy day around here. Football is back in all its fabled glory. Last night high schools hosted pre-season scrimmages, today middle schools jamboreed, and rec fields hosted pint size players taking their first snaps and making their first tackles. Aaahhh, football, we've missed you!
Football isn't just a pastime around our house, it's a way of life. Tucker and Tanner learned to walk on fields freshly mowed by their Daddy; they sprinted their first hundred yards on a field painted by some dedicated dads on a late Thursday night; they blew their first whistle to a group of eager high school boys. It's in their blood, just as it is in their Daddy's.
Today, at approximately 10:00 am, Tate went under center for the first time. He completed his first "game" pass, ran for his first official yards, and felt the first of many hits from a kid whose birth certificate is still in question. He and his teammates, most donning helmets and shoulder pads for the first time, took their first steps on what will hopefully be a long road of sweating, sprinting, and sucking it up.
See, today was hot. These seven year olds played in their first jamboree, and they played two back to back games underneath an unforgiving sun and a relentless humidity. And they couldn't quit. And they couldn't sit. And they couldn't retreat to the stands or the parent tents when they'd had enough. They had to play on. They had to sub for a teammate who needed a water break. They had to sip, sip, sip and head back for more. They had to block; they had to tackle; they had to run when they weren't sure their little bodies had any steam left in the engine.
Today, a group of seven year olds finished what they started. It wasn't easy. We watched as pre-game giggles and sideline horsing in game one turned to flushed faces and somber looks of "how much longer?" in game two. Football isn't easy, and it isn't for everybody, and some of those players may decide one day to bow out gracefully. But today they got a glimpse of what all the grown up coaches, players of yesteryear remember so fondly: teamwork, touchdowns, time-outs in a huddle with secret codes and words in a language only they understand.
Few things are better than being part of a team. Few things last the way football's lessons do. Long after 7u football ends, long after high school Friday nights are yearbook memories, long after the pads and helmets have been put away and the trophies and pictures are left to gather dust, little boys and big boys alike will remember the joy, the pain, the frustration, the triumph of a Saturday morning win, a Friday night loss, a deep in the trenches tie on a colder than cold night.
When they take a test, start a new job, lose a friend, move to a new town, struggle with something no one else understands, football will be there, coaching them up, urging them on, yelling from the sidelines, "don't you quit on me!"
And those boys, men by then, will smile, snarl their lips, dig their feet a little deeper into the dirt, and press on until they reach the end zone, the goal line, what ever theirs might be. They'll finish what they started.
I'm so glad my boys play football. I'm so glad Tucker and Tanner and now Tate and soon Truett have been introduced to a sport that demands so much of them, requires the best of them, and gives so much to them in return.
Oh yeah, and that Coach over there, I'm so glad he introduced ME to this lovely game of offense, defense, and special teams and made me not only a football wife but made us a footballfamily!
