Mistakes at the three yard line.

Mistakes were made, one mistake in particular stands out for me. A mistake made about a year ago now, taking place at the three-yard line. It started that morning I got up a little groggy from my sleep on that Friday morning, checked my phone and “oh my god it was Friday!” I thought to myself. I was half asleep and I knew it was Friday in the back of my mind but seeing it on my phone kind of shot some energy through me. I was already excited for the day not really thinking about the football game we had to play later on in the evening, I was just ready for the weekend. No school, no responsibilities, just hanging out doing whatever I want with my friends because I don’t have any other obligations for these two precious days of the week. So I go through the day as normal going through classes, talking with my friends being the normal old goofy me.

Eventually the bus ride starts and we listen to the coaches speeches about what we need to do and life lessons about character and such things. I kind of just listen along, thinking to myself not really paying too much attention because I’m off in my own little world of imagination staring blankly out the cold, frosted windows wishing I remembered to bring a sweatshirt with me. So we get ready listen to music and coaches give their last couple of cents in before the game and warmup. The games going on and I’m nervous as can be, it’s a foggy night we’re under the lights and the stands are crowded behind and in front of us. I’m just hoping I can remember all of the plays and I don’t mess something up so I can prove to coach I can be a valuable player among the team. Well I get my chance to shine and I run some plays and it’s going good I remembered what to do and gave us a few yards to work with and the game seems to be going good. We get close to the end zone, I get the ball this play, my heart starts pumping and I get that nervous feeling in my chest. I get the ball, run the play and I’m a couple of steps from the end zone, three yards to be exact, then out of nowhere some massive four hundred pound man comes out of nowhere and tackles me the ball gets stripped out. I have nothing going through my mind I don’t know what to think, by the time I get up I see the opposite color jersey with the ball running down the field with all of us running after him. I know exactly what happened, I run as fast as I can after him trying to right my wrong and get the ball back for us. It’s no use they scored.

I get taken out and I just sit there the whole game not hearing a thing. All i can hear or feel is the blood running through my veins and pulsing through my ears. I think to myself, what have I done, why me, how could I let the team down and let that happen. We end up losing and I thin k it’s all my fault. I definitely had a big part in it, but I later find out someone missed their block and their guy got the tackle. Maybe I could have scored, maybe this, maybe that, maybe I could have just held on to the ball. There were a lot of factors going into that game and maybe if I didn’t drop it we would have had the momentum to keep pushing and win maybe not. The world is full of what if’s, and could be’s. Immediately, I accepted my responsibility and I put the weight of the whole game on my shoulders, but people make mistakes, stuff happens. We can’t always come out on top. I learned a valuable lesson of ball security through that, I got a little better and I can learn from my mistakes and get better through them. I realize what I did and I’m going to try like hell to not allow it to happen again.