Practice Makes Perfect

I've been doing great this year for football, so far. We wrapped up the regular season with a big win against Ottawa, but we still have playoffs starting this Saturday. We play Chicago Julian; they are a public league school so most of their wins are against other public league schools. Big deal. Their linemen are all just fat boys; most of them are above six feet tall and more than 270 pounds. I have been watching a lot of film on them and it looks like they have plenty of athletic players, but they do not function together as a team. Their quarter back is an outstanding player; he has multiple division I colleges scouting him. Our game plan is to shut him down. They kind of remind me of our team at the beginning of the season. Luckily we worked out all of the flaws on our team, and now we work perfectly together. We also have more than one key player: two all conference running backs, three all conference linemen, an all conference tight end, three all conference linebackers, and two all conference defensive backs. We also have Alejandro as the conference's offensive most valuable player. I think they are going to have a hard time stopping all of us. As long as we set our goals high and do our best we should win. One of my goals is to just demolish the quarterback. I can't do that in practice though so when ever I have a chance I am just going to try to take his head off. The thing that makes me the most nervous is messing up. This could be the last game I ever play. As long as we play like we practice we should be fine.

Successd

It's my senior year and everything is going flawlessly; I don't want football to end. I was really nervous during the summer about football, since I barely played a down last year. However, I have really stepped up my game this year. I now have a starting position at linebacker on defense, and all of the special teams. I thought at the beginning of the year that I would play more offense, but I still rotate with Chris Fritsch. My biggest concern is my defensive position; Coach V told me that if i kept up my great performances I could be an all confrence linebacker. When he told me this I first thought "Oh great like thats not any pressure at all." Now that I think about it this is a great accomplishment for me; I came from not playing the previous year to being a potential all confrence player. I believe that alot of that credit goes to my older brother Joe. Last year was his last year ever being able to play football and it ended with a tradgic loss in the playoffs. After that game he said through tears, "Bud, I love you so much and I want you to do great next year. You never know when your last game could be, so don't waste your time."
I could tell how bad he felt, and I knew that I may not feel it now, but when I'm done it's gonna suck. He then said the most motivating words ever spoken to me. "I'm living through you now."
 Now, half a year later, whenever I feel like letting up in practice I see him and I think, "Awh crap I can't let him down." Thats how I get my drive, those few five words. Thats what motivates me to get that all confrence title.

Lost Cause?

       I feel it's important to help out the community, that's why I joined service learning. At the beginning of the year I had a study hall third hour and decided it was a good opportunity to get involved in the community; unfortunately all of the teachers assistant spots were taken for the elementary schools so I got stuck as a hall monitor. It's an easy job all I have to do is deliver newspapers and passes. Today, however, Mr. Austin told me I would be tutoring for the next two weeks instead. At first I was pretty happy that I would get the opportunity to go over to the Challand or one of the elementary schools, but then he told me I would be tutoring one of my former teammates from the swim team who had quit and started partying and smoking his life away; for this reason I was not entirely fond of this kid.
       After the first day I was not mad about this anymore, but more upset than anything. This kid needed tutoring for math because he was having a "hard time" leaning the material; truth is he was actually good at it. After one session it became evident to me that my former teammate wasn't an idiot he just had no motivation; he knew almost everything he was asked even knew some things I had forgotten from freshman year algebra.
      I thought, going in, I would just be wasting my time with a pot head who was just going to drop out, but now I can tell he is actually learning. It feels really good to know I am making a difference in someones life; someone that I actually know.

SEE YA!!!

Monday was the girls volleyball game; it was outrageous, to say the least. The football team usually goes to all of the home to cheer for our girls and this game was against our rival school Dixon; we were extra rowdy. The first match was going very well, our girls were winning twenty to seven and our crowd was going crazy. We would chant, "Sterling Warriors, [clap, clap, clap clap clap]" there were several different variations of the defense chant. We won the first match twenty-five to twelve. Then Dixon had first serve in the second match; the girl serving looked very nervous, she was tallish and pretty scrawny. When she tossed the ball up for the serve, at the top of my lungs, I shouted, "I'm in your head!' the ball went straight into the net. It was our serve and Cassidy Gillihan was up, she scored six points in a row; Dixon finally stopped her. Then it was the next girls turn. This series of event made our crowd go out of control, and our student section was chanting literally anything they could think of. I remember one of their chants was, "We chant everything! [clap, clap, clap clap clap]" The girl looked over at our section with great determination. She tossed the ball up and again I shouted, "I'm in your head!" She made the serve in and she seemed pretty happy. After the play the ref blew his whistle pointed at our student section while holding up a yellow card; I never knew this but i guess that means we are warned. She looked over at our section with a kind of ha-I-can-still-get-the-ball-in-even-with-distractions look but then she saw Jordan Neal with his shirt lifted up over his extremely large stomach jiggling his fat; her face went straight from confident to disgusted. I could tell that she was very distracted by this so again when she tossed the ball up I yelled even louder than I did before, "I'm in your head!" The ball went straight into the net. The official climbed down his stand like he was all high and mighty blowing his whistle. He walked over and told me either I leave or everybody leaves. I hopped up threw my fists in the sky and yelled, "See ya!" Everybody applauded while I walked out the door. I'm pretty sure I am the first one to ever get kicked out of a volleyball game.

The breeze between my legs

I never thought it would be so fun to dress like a girl. It's homecoming week and more specifically, opposite gender day. All you have to do, if your a boy, is dress like a girl. If your a girl then you dress like a guy; for some reason all the girls thought it was gangster day. I was going to be a party pooper and not do it but my neighbor Lauren talked me into it. Now for girls this wasn't a big deal, but for guys we had to find a dress and everything. I boroughed a dress, necklace, and wig from Lauren; if i do say so myself i was looking pretty sexy. Now walking around the halls was hilarious, people would stare, laugh, and i even got a few cat calls. I enjoyed walking around looking at other peoples outfits it was rather funny. Now the part that sucked about wearing a dress is trying to keep your legs closed in class; this may be easy for girls because they are so used to crossing there legs, but when guys cross their legs it is a little more than uncomforatble. I was so distracted trying to not reveal myself that I couldn't concentrate in class. There were a couple times when my mind drifted off, while my legs drifted apart; not a good deal. I must say though there was a nice breeze between my legs.

Team dinner

Every thursday the football team gets together after practice and film to go eat and get pumped up around the bonfire. Usually we just start with playing bags and whatever else there is to do at the house. Last night we were at Sawyers house. He has a really small pool and after about thirty minutes half of the team was in it making a huge whirlpool. The pool was about seventy degrees and everybody went straight to the fire to warm up. Kids were wrapped in towels waving the underwear on sticks over the fire to dry them off. One kid thought it would be a good idea to stigmatize another teamate with a charred stick... It wasn't! A huge rumble started, teamates were attacking other teamates. Half of the team drove off. At that point we were no longer a team, just a bunch of rowdy kids yelling at eachother about how immature we are. About ten kids stayed and eight kids were walking the five mile country road back to town. I was among the ten that stayed trying to create some civility. We had a talk about what to do then we went to go find the walkers. At the end of the team dinner we had about half the team there and we sat by the fire and talked about what we have to do to get the team together and what to do to win on friday. The conversation got really deep and some players were crying. The problem was the kids that caused the trouble weren't there to hear it. Now today, on game day, half the team is broken up and mad and the other half is as close as a family. I'm really nervous to see how this game turns out. But even more nervous about monday's practice all we are going to do is run.