Monday, November 18, 2013

The Grid Iron...

As many faithful readers are aware, the boy started 7th grade this year.  Of course that means athletics and FOOTBALL!!!!  The boy has wanted to play football since he was a wee child but he was always too big for the weight categories in pee wee football.  This would mean red shirt and no touching the ball.

He got interested more in baseball and the subject was tabled for a couple of years.  But, he started middle school and all it took was one look from the coach and the recruiting started.  All through 6th grade the coach was on him about signing up for football and the boy was on the fence about it.  Time came to register for 7th grade and he still hadn't made a decision but we put him in athletics and waited to see.

When the school year started he dove right in to football.  This was a huge time commitment for him with practice every day in athletics and after school.  It meant a lot of "superman" in the land yacht as we rushed from football to baseball.  It also meant a lot of figuring out things that could be hot and ready and eaten in the car (besides the $.99 heart attack in a bag).

After a week of practice the coach assigned the boys to teams.  The boy was thrilled to be named to A Team!  He was told his position would be primarily Strong Tackle and he was loving it.

The team worked hard and started the season a little rough.  The boy was added to special teams for kickoff return and moved around there a couple of times.  The team lost the first four games.  The coach then changed things up a bit and had the boy start playing defense in addition to offense and special teams and was assigned a defensive end position.  The team started to win games and gained momentum.  By the end of the season they had won the last four games.  By the end of the season the boy played every down in every game.   The team even had a "Follow Bonner" play where he ran up the side making a hole for the running back.  He had become the football machine the coach wanted him to be.







Deb

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