Mistakes

Four minutes left in the fourth quarter we are down by 7. Mt. View barley gets to line all of their faces beating red, trying to catch their breath, I can see the sweat and effort just dripping off of them, the bitter taste of resentment fills their mouths. Since I knew they were tired and I still had a ton of energy I knew I had a great chance of getting the sack. Mt. View hikes the ball and I see my opportunity to get the sack but I remember what coach said “Stay home.” So I thought to my self ” I have to be responsible for the run if the quarter back breaks free.” I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t wait any longer but I had responsibilities. I couldn’t wait any longer, the urge to get the sack was unbearable.

I got off of my block and chased after the quarterback, he saw me coming. He looks at me in the eyes sees me coming to kill him. Makes one move and side steps me, I missed him. I see him break one, two , three tackles, the sounds of the pads cracking together, he scrambles away and sees the hole that I was supposed to be covering and breaks through the line and runs for a thirty yard touchdown. We lost the game 28-14.

I go over to the bench and I see coach giving me the stink eye. If you know coach like I do then you know that when you don’t do your assignment you’re pretty much dead to him. I thought I was dead meat and I was expecting the explosion, but instead Coach handled our loss very well. So did the rest of the coaching staff. Our coaches do not handle losses very well because we have never really lost a lot. The coaches heads down as we all walk over to the bus. Coach Doucette comes over to me grabs me by the face mask and screams “You had one job, all you had to do was fill the hole and you thought you could be better than the team and go for the big play. That’s not your job!”

We get on the bus in shame, heads down and people depressed. We know we played a horrible game. We know that we did not play like the Oak Hill Raiders. We load the bus like prisoners going back to jail. I head to my seat and coach stops me in my tracks and pulls me to the front of the bus where the coaches sit and talk. He says “Drouin sit down, do you know why I called you up here?” “Yes, coach I think I do””You probably don’t. You actually did the smart thing out there, if you didn’t go after that quarter back he would’ve thrown a touch down anyway. You made a heads up play.” You have to realize that you are not going to be perfect, it is okay to make mistakes. That’s how you learn. …How did you feel when it was done? At the end of the day we all trusted each other so much more, we felt that we knew what to do and what to fix. Coach proved that it is okay to make mistakes as long as they are at 100%.

Photo by Jörg Dornblut on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND