High School In Words

It all started at the end of August in 2016, when my high school journey began. I was 14 years old when I started my freshmen year. I played football, basketball, and lacrosse for my four years of school and participated in a few clubs as well. It seemed like every year of school for the next four years, something went wrong. We never really had a full year of school since freshman year. It’s been one hell of a journey, and here’s how it went. 

Freshman year was introduced during the summer where I had to be at the school at 5 am, three days a week for lifting with the football team. I also was rudely awakened by double sessions, which were the worst, as every football player should know. Just like every other freshman we had a normal first year, and it was fun. I was able to see my brother graduate from his senior year and to extend his education at Arizona State University. I said bye to some of my senior buddies and carried onto my Sophomore year, which is when all of the weird things started to occur. 

Sophomore year was a very exciting year as I got a huge new responsibility. I got my driver’s license two months after school started. Again, I had double sessions to attend to. I started to become better at football and got more playing time. This was something I was very excited about, I’d been working hard in the weight room and wanted to impress. Football did many things for me over the years and helped me become a mentally and physically stronger person. Winter time came around and it was a very cold one. I remember football in late November got very, very cold. This was the first rodeo we had. One day during school I noticed very low water pressure in the building, and thought nothing of it. A couple days later in class the intercom went off and Mr. Alberti announced a pipe had burst in the well, and we were out of water. This meant no water, no kids. This led to half days of school for an entire month. It became a quick habit of seven-thirty to eleven-fifteen very quickly. At first this was great, of course we want half days of school. We were only sophomores so it didn’t matter to us. School carried on to full days after a long month, and thankfully nothing else happened. I finished my basketball senior year as a swinger on Varsity, and lacrosse and FBLA came around. Lacrosse had a very good year but was ended early due to a loss in playoffs. This year’s graduating class hit me very hard, and it was a rough graduation ceremony seeing them go. But I was one year closer to doing the same thing. 

Junior year quickly came around, and it was a great year. I was excited about football because I grew over the summer and had been in the weight room more. I also got a job at Fielder’s Choice that summer and saved up some good money. We had a very good football season with a bunch of wins and clutch playoff wins, which I contributed to, winning our best game with a game with a final kick. I also fell in love with the cutest girl, and was happily dating her all year up until now. As yet again basketball came around, another weird thing happened. A big wind storm knocked out our power for a week or so. This really sucked, a week of no school, no power, and nothing to do with the cold, gloomy days. I was able to get back to school and finish my basketball season, which was not good. Lacrosse came around, and let me tell you, it was the best year yet. We all had amazing connections, we were really good, and it was just fun in general. I was one of our starting defenders and it was so fun. We finished the regular season 12-0 and it was the best feeling in the world. Then sadly, a week later it ended due to a loss in the last 30 seconds of the game, 13-12. We made an astonishing come back being down 8-12 at half. It was a hard feeling knowing the kids I’d played with my whole life were gone. That graduation was the hardest by far. I had best friends in the graduating class of 2019, and it really sucked letting them go. But now, it was my time. It was my senior year and I was ready for it, but God had different plans. 

Senior year was one of the saddest years of my life. My double sessions were cut down to a week and a half, so I didn’t get the full experience one last time. We had a very good season for our size and it was so fun. I finished my last year of football losing to Lisbon, which is always tough losing to rivals. But something worse was coming, that no one was expecting for a long time. I woke up a few weeks later on a Sunday morning feeling weird, like it was just a different feeling that something was wrong. I carried on with my day, and still felt weird that night. At exactly 7:09 pm I got a call from Coach Doucette. I answered, and we talked about a college coach wanting to recruit me from Mass. I agreed and he said he’d be there with me to talk to them. So we talked for a bit longer and he mentioned he didn’t feel well. I felt bad, and wished him the best. Then he said something that made me proud and excited. He paused before he hung up, and with a crack in his voice he said “I love you Llama.” I smiled, and said “I love you too coach, thank you for everything.” He hung up the phone, and I was excited for both being recruited and the first time coach had personally told me he loved me. The next morning I woke up to my mom outside my door crying. I sat up and said “What, what’s going on?” She looked at me and said, Liam, Coach passed away. My heart dropped and I felt like I was going to puke. I just remember sitting there for 20 minutes staring at my wall and crying. I had to go see my team and be with them, I couldn’t stay home. Although this was the saddest day I’ve ever had to experience, I had to move on. I learned many lessons from coach, and from things he said. Our saying all season long finally made sense, but in a different meaning. “Together we rise, apart we fall” This really hit me a few nights after coach’s death. I also found out I was the last call coach made, one of his Senior players. It makes me so happy I was able to spend time with that man, and his family. Basketball was rough without him there watching. Before lacrosse could even come around the last weird thing in God’s plan came to. The coronavirus hit the U.S. like a truck. I never got to experience the last spring fling, prom, senior night, senior assembly, or a real civic center graduation. But I did get one thing, all of those previous memories that will last an eternity. Senior year was the best year of them all because it was the last, maybe it was the hardest, but it will always be the best. 

High school taught me many things, not just how to write, do math, or learn about the previous world. I learned the biggest lessons that were always preached but I never listened. The first one, is never take what you love for granted. The second one is everything happens for a reason. Cheesy, I know. But they are very true lessons. There are better things to come class of 2020, you may not see it now, but there is. We’ll be the ones to say, “I was part of the corona class” and laugh about it 10 years from now, along with all of the memories that you’ll never lose. Congrats class of 2020, it’s been real.

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