just thinking back to a practice on a crisp fall Sept/Oct afternoon after school. Middle of the season, the team was good/bad/indifferent.. I was starting/role player/on the bench. Undoubtedly 2 of your 4 best friends were out there with you... and 2 guys that you hated as well. You have a headache.. a bad grade looming.. a 47-51% chance with a decent looking girl if your timings right.
You run the fricken tires and the water sitting on the inside of the tires soaks your socks. Maybe you're a young guy and the older guy behind you bushes you and you trip.. maybe your're the older guy and you push some punk out of your way. You run laps because nobody counted of stretch loud enough. Maybe you miss an assignment and get rotated out with a quick "get your head out of your azz".. maybe its the day you rotate in for the guy who screwed up. Maybe you screw up during bumpbs and drill somebody, reprimanded by a coach who is smiling while he yells at you.
Some of you guys could catch/throw.. me I made all of my bones on Oklahoma and other impact drills, simply not quitting or backing down... routinely trying to best guys who outweighed me.. Lying on your back, fingers moving fast ready to flip and hit somebody at the whistle--the whole team circled around you and the other guy, until the ball lands in your stomach and you become the running back instead.
At then end you might lead a breakdown.. maybe you run more laps for dogging it in sprints at the end. Maybe you have to do monkey rolls, somersaults, or crabwalked for not being sharp that day. The older you get the more responsiblities.. by high school you had to head for mandatory ice or heat if you weren't 100%. Mandatory study halls in the weight room if any grade was below a C at midpoint. Sometimes (way back) you might "continue a conversation" with a kid you had been scrapping with all practice... sometimes you might get hunted down and hope that somebody breaks it up quick enough before the starting MLB destroys you after practice is over.
Football taught (most of us not named Michael Irvin or Lavar Arrington) that there was always somebody bigger or badder, if not in your locker room, most likely out on the field against and tough opponent. You learned that mouthing off can hurt.. and you become a bit more careful (unless your nuts.. we all had a buddy who never knew when to shut up). You learn about alliances, a guy who might spit at you in practice might have your back out at party.. he might not LOL. I started some years but spent more time on the bench over the long haul than I did taking game snaps. I swear I learned more on the bench.. to be successful you simply can not quit, we were taught that in football "nothing's was worse than a quitter". In the grown up world there are a lot of quitters--doesn't mean that quitters are bad people, but more often than not they are not successful.-sg
You run the fricken tires and the water sitting on the inside of the tires soaks your socks. Maybe you're a young guy and the older guy behind you bushes you and you trip.. maybe your're the older guy and you push some punk out of your way. You run laps because nobody counted of stretch loud enough. Maybe you miss an assignment and get rotated out with a quick "get your head out of your azz".. maybe its the day you rotate in for the guy who screwed up. Maybe you screw up during bumpbs and drill somebody, reprimanded by a coach who is smiling while he yells at you.
Some of you guys could catch/throw.. me I made all of my bones on Oklahoma and other impact drills, simply not quitting or backing down... routinely trying to best guys who outweighed me.. Lying on your back, fingers moving fast ready to flip and hit somebody at the whistle--the whole team circled around you and the other guy, until the ball lands in your stomach and you become the running back instead.
At then end you might lead a breakdown.. maybe you run more laps for dogging it in sprints at the end. Maybe you have to do monkey rolls, somersaults, or crabwalked for not being sharp that day. The older you get the more responsiblities.. by high school you had to head for mandatory ice or heat if you weren't 100%. Mandatory study halls in the weight room if any grade was below a C at midpoint. Sometimes (way back) you might "continue a conversation" with a kid you had been scrapping with all practice... sometimes you might get hunted down and hope that somebody breaks it up quick enough before the starting MLB destroys you after practice is over.
Football taught (most of us not named Michael Irvin or Lavar Arrington) that there was always somebody bigger or badder, if not in your locker room, most likely out on the field against and tough opponent. You learned that mouthing off can hurt.. and you become a bit more careful (unless your nuts.. we all had a buddy who never knew when to shut up). You learn about alliances, a guy who might spit at you in practice might have your back out at party.. he might not LOL. I started some years but spent more time on the bench over the long haul than I did taking game snaps. I swear I learned more on the bench.. to be successful you simply can not quit, we were taught that in football "nothing's was worse than a quitter". In the grown up world there are a lot of quitters--doesn't mean that quitters are bad people, but more often than not they are not successful.-sg
