Bad game

I will be writing about the Oak Hill vs Lisbon football game that took place on a Friday night in September and how a change in position messed up how I played. Like I stated already there was a Friday night football game at Lisbon that I was going to be playing in. At this point in the season our record was 0-2 with the two previous games being losses. After school Coach Stowell told us that we needed to stay at the school once the school day ended and that’s what the whole team did. We then went outside for a walk through before we ate ham italians and got on the bus. A walkthrough is when the team goes through our offensive and defensive plays and re-explains them well. At this point I was playing center and sort of tuned out while the coach was telling the offensive tackles their jobs but I tuned into what the guards were doing because the coach said I may need to go there. With those parts and pieces of the offense learned and remembered I felt confident in myself that when it came time to my job, I could do it.

Moments later after the walk through we ate ham italians and I took off the tomatoes and olives to then enjoy my sandwich and a water I then left the table where they were located to the bleachers outside to eat my pre game meal. After the team was done we all went to the locker room to pack up our gear. I went through my mental checklist. Helmet, jersey, shoulder pads, one single glove, gerdal, pants, socks and cleats. Once I had what I needed for gear I brought it all to the bus and chose a seat and put in my airpods to listen to some pregame music. Coach then took role call to make sure we had all the players on one bus. I sat alone on the bus to reflect on past games to not repeat the same mistakes as before. The drive was not long before we arrived at the field. As we all got off the crowded bus we all packed into the locker room like sardines to get dressed for the upcoming event.

Once inside the locker room I dressed as fast as I could so that I could get out of there. Something that was left out of the beginning of the story was that in the morning I had woken up with a head cold and a sore throat, as well as missing the ability to breath out of my nose. I had taken a dayquil to get rid of my symptoms the best I could. When it was time to start warmups I was good to go and feeling better. I went through the warmups ready to play and excited. The team came out hyped and ready to go. Everyone stood up for the national anthem before the game and then we went out as captains for the coin toss. We won the coin toss and wanted to play offense first. I came back to the coach and he told me I was playing tackle during the game rather than center of guard. This was a big deal to me cause I had no idea what the tackle was supposed to do at the time cause I had tuned out not knowing that I may need to play there. When we finally went out to offense I had to ask what I was doing while in the huddle. But I was not confident enough in that position to play to my fullest potential. I am a good player when I’m confident but when I’m not I often play badly. This led to me not doing my job well which made the whole team suffer. I was not proud of the job I did after the game. I tried my best but it was not enough and sometimes in life your best isn’t enough but that doesn’t mean you stop trying.

Thinking back to this memory it made me realize that I need to make sure I know everyones jobs on the offensive line and be confident in myself and others that I and they know what in doing.Like I said before I tried my best but it was not enough and sometimes in life your best isn’t enough but that doesn’t mean you stop trying. It means you get back up and keep pushing on to better yourself for you and others. Sometimes it’s not about how good you are compared to someone or something, it’s about how many times you can get back up and keep putting all you have into something, it’s about finding that drive that fuel within yourself to keep evolving what you do.

“Football Field ” by dani o’neal is licensed under CC BY 2.0.