It was the summer before the 4 th grade , when a good friend and neighbor said to me, "Hey , why doesn't Zach sign up for football?" I thought for a minute and said, "Well, if you're doing it , then we will too." At the time Zach was playing baseball and he was involved in Karate as well. Plus I had a preschooler and a toddler, that both required my undivided attention. However, I was all about creating a well rounded child, and he did seem to like to hit things , so football it was. Thus began an 8 year journey , starting with the New Tampa Sharks (where my heart still resides, as well as some of my great friends) and now ending with the Wiregrass Ranch High School Bulls. We are two weeks away from completing a very long and fulfilling chapter in our lives, and I don't know how to feel about that. Eight years of watching my son get hit, do the hitting, save a game, lose a game has been a veritable roller coaster ride of emotions for me. But this is not all about me. It is about a boy who became a young man right before my eyes, and football was always in the backdrop of that childhood.
If any of you know Zach, you know he is not a picture of a football player. He is thin , almost too thin, and right at 6 feet tall. He is more pegged as a baseball player or even a runner. Both things he has done, but has always come right back to football. I remember the first time he put those huge shoulder pads on when he was a Mitey Mite for the Sharks. He looked so small, and so adorable. Then , after many pictures and oohs and ahhs , I watched him play. Then I knew, this kid could PLAY. He wasn't afraid to get out there and possibly be hit, albeit by another miniature 9 year old ,because those were the days of weight class football. Week after week for four years he played rec football, and was the starting QB for most of those seasons. He gained confidence, strength and problem solving skills over the course of those years. (Yet the National Honor Society rejected him because he had no leadership qualities, but I digress...). Once in high school football was a test in accommodation. He learned to improvise, and adapt new attitudes all the time due to several coaching problems and changes. All the while keeping an attitude of positivity and always playing at the very highest level he could. He still, as a senior player on Varsity, is called upon week after week to sometimes play out of his comfort zone, and he does. And he does it WELL. He has gone from exclusively playing QB during JV season to playing many positions, both offense and defense ,4 years later. He may not be the best player on the team but he is the one the coaches go to all the time.
This is not a testament to how great a football player Zach is, it is a testament to how sports can shape a person . He did most of his extracurriculars in high school on that field. He missed countless weekend trips, vacations and job opportunities because he has devoted his time to playing a sport that he loves and trying to get better at it. He has the minimum number of volunteer hours required by Bright Futures because just try to fit in volunteering somewhere for 100 hours between weightlifting,speed drills and practice. This sport has been a constant in his life , and our family's life as well. Every Friday night in the Fall , we can have no plans . We are at football, period. Am I going to miss that? Desperately. Am I going to miss worrying that the next hit my kid takes on the field will be the one that has lasting repercussions? No Way. So you see, there's the mixed emotions I was talking about. I know Zach feels this way as well. He loves the game, but hates the grueling schedule. He loves being a part of the team, but hates the constant soreness and aches he has. But obviously the love outweighs all that other stuff because he has stuck with it for almost 9 years. And so have I.
Now it's time for college applications and decisions. He would love to be part of a college football team. So far no coach is looking at him. Probably because of that 6 foot, 160 lb frame of his. Its definitely not because of his stats, or his tenacity on the field, because both of those things are stellar. I want him to achieve his dreams , and if playing football is part of those dreams then I hope he gets an offer. However, football has taught him discipline and strength , which spilled over into his academic life. If Zach doesn't make a college team , Zach still gets to go to college because he kept his grades up throughout these years of playing football. And that was a lesson was worth learning these past 9 years.
