The Last Practice

During one football practice, my coach and I were forced to be patient with my teammates due to many mistakes that were being made. During that practice, my team was running plays for our football game for the following day. We were getting ready to play the #1 team in our league, and we were only one game away from going to states. Despite all the pressure, a lot of us were repeatedly making mistakes and messing up during the plays. These were the same plays we had been running since the summer when we started football. Our coach held us to a higher standard because he knew we were than we were playing. Our team can these plays in our sleep but during that practice we just couldn’t run any of the plays correctly which made our practice miserable. Our coach was getting frustrated since we were practicing horribly and had to attend a playoff game the next day.

He was forced to be patient with us so we could get through the funk we were in, since outbursts of anger and discipline never worked well to improve our team. Even through our mistakes, our head coach was still determined for us to play our best at this playoff game. Through my coaches patience, the frustration seeped through and he got angry at our team a few times. It was understandable, though, because this should have been muscle memory at that point in the season. For most of the practice, coach overcame the frustration from our mistakes because he knew that patience was key to being able to continue going strong and fight against the number one seed the next day. He was very upset at what our last practice was turning out to be. Nearing the end of the practice, we all knew that we were gonna need to truly focus up and run our plays correctly so we can finish this practice strong. We all knew that this could potentially be our last practice since we were in playoffs and nothing is guaranteed. It was a shame that we were playing so terrible on our last practice of the season. It meant more to seniors as this was our last football practice ever so we all came together and made sure we weren’t going to finish the way we started. Together as a team we overcame this funk and finished the practice on a good note with coach. Coach was patient enough to help us finish the practice on a good note going into the next day.

Unfortunately the next day, we lost that game. But even through that loss our coaches were still immensely proud of the way we performed against the number one team. This wasn’t the outcome we wanted but our coaches were especially proud how we fought through all four quarters even while losing. This story is about my coach and I being patient with my teammates even despite the pressure we were under to help finish practice well.

“Football Field” by Jared Cherup is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0