2nd Guess

In my opinion there is no such thing as a bad question. Even though I’m paying attention and listening to the directions of something I still find myself needing an explanation on what we are actually doing, so in my opinion there are no such thing as bad questions. However this did not stop me from not asking questions I thought others might think are dumb.  during my freshman year of football I was shy because I was brand new to the team and I was a new face to all the  coaches. The linemen split up from the skills players and were running ones. Ones are when two linemen go head to head drive blocking each other.

Being the small shy freshmen I stayed at the back of the crowd of large varsity athletes and tried watching but everyone was in my way. I wasn’t yet sure what one’s were yet so I wanted to ask coach W and one of the upperclassmen that was there about the point of it and what to do. But being the shy and intimidated freshmen I was I never asked. I had seen one group of guys go and next thing I knew coach W was calling me out to “see what I got”. With the whole team hyping up the new small kid I got extremely nervous . Coach W called out one of the upperclassmen for the drill. I was not clear on what to do in the drill and wanted to ask but I didn’t because I was afraid of what my new teammates and coaches would think of me as a player and even a person. I didn’t want to feel judged at the moment and now looking back I wish I was less ashamed of my uncertainty.

When the upperclassmen linemen stepped out I felt afraid. He was larger than my and yet more athletic as well well as much stronger. So when coach W told us to line up I decided I was just gonna try and hit them as hard as I could because that’s what I Thought we were doing. I lined up and heard coach W say “down set go” and the next thing I knew I was on my back flattened out and out of breath. After the hit there was a lot of cheering. As I felt the mass of the other player move off of me I felt relieved. The upperclassmen linemen reached out his hand and helped me up. I accepted this gesture and felt my body get sprung up off the ground. The team was shocked I had gotten up and I got a pat on the shoulder as a sign of approval and felt much better about the loss I had just suffered. But Coach W was not impressed and decided I would go again with the same person. This time I thought to myself about jumping the snap count. Which was not a good idea. Coach W made us line back up and when I heard the word down come out of his mouth I lunged forward and hit the player across from me. He did not move. Coach W said that I was not supposed to do that and made an example out of me to the other players, by making me do 20 pushups on the spot by his count. I thought to myself that this all could have been avoided if I had just asked what I was supposed to do instead of thinking about how embarrassing it would be to ask. After this he still made me get down to do the drill. Again I lined up and heard coach W say “down set go” and yet again I was on my back and out of breath. But this time I also had a headache when I got up, but on the bright side I was able to get back up on my own.

It is from this story that I learned to not think about what others think of me. If I need something clarified then I ask because that situation was so unpleasant and embarrassing in itself. This is the reason why I think there are no stupid questions.

Featured Image:”Thinking” by Elizabeth Haslam is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.