A Question With A Lesson

Senior year of football was just underway,and I was excited to see what the season would not only bring me, but my team and coaches. I was very nervous to start this final season of high school football, while having to lead by example to the younger ones and to work to my best potential to make my coaches and parents proud. This season was about to be fun, but would be filled with many mistakes and problems. At the start to the season, I was honestly struggling to block, remembering plays and sometime catching tough balls. One particular practice before the first very good team we’d face, I’d regret asking a very stupid, and maybe even rude question.

As coach Doucette was explaining a very important play that would be a bit sneaky, and tricky to cover I thought it’d be a great time to tie both of my cleats. As no one cared to me tying my cleats, Doucette quickly realized I wasn’t paying attention and pointed it out. He scared me when his voiced raised, and my name came out of his mouth, “Llama, are you even paying attention?” of course every “teenagers” response is “Yes coach!” and the proceed to asking you to repeat what they said. Most kids can multi-task, but not me. I had no idea was he had said, and said, “no coach, I have no idea what you were saying” I could immediately knew he was mad by his facial expression. Coach then repeats himself to as what the play was, while insulting me in some way about not paying attention and it ended up pissing me off. After running the play twice, and it not working the way he wanted it to, I decided to ask a very stupid question. I have no clue why, no reasoning to why I asked “whats the point of this play?” with a bit of attitude because I was tired and upset. This would be the first time coach Doucette looked a little bit taller than me, because at that very moment I felt as if I was shrinking. He got to me very quickly and began screaming in my face. This would be the very first time coach would ever be truly, truly mad at me. With spit, and steam blowing out of his ears, I got the response “Do you know who you are talking to son? If you don’t like my play, get off my field! If you don’t want to pay attention to our plays, get off our field! Get running!” I ran up and down the field as fast as I could until he told me to stop.

As I stood there sort of shocked, one of the other players helped me collect my head so I wouldn’t become a complete mental head case the rest of the practice. After practice, I apologized to my team in the final huddle and made an effort to apologize to my coach, and it would teach me a huge lesson. I ran up to coach and said “I’m very sorry about how I acted coach, that was a very stupid question, and I should never question your coaching decisions.” He put his arm around me and said “Look Llama, life can throw a lot of things at you, and if you aren’t prepared or pay attention it’ll hit you harder than I spoke to you.” Coach was completely right with what he said, and I’ll never forget it. I responded with “Thank you coach, I won’t do it again.” So asking a very stupid question got me some running and spit in my face, it also taught me a lesson to not question authority because most of the time they will be correct. Coach taught me many lessons throughout my high school career at Oak Hill, and I couldn’t thank him enough. Rest Easy Coach Doucette.

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