My Memoir: A Football Life Clash-crack...Clash-crack...Clash-crack. That’s the sound of warriors going into battle. One practice can be easygoing and smooth, while the next is miserable and stressful. Whether it’s the hot, scorching, sizzling sun beaming down on your forehead making you sweat like a pig, or the cool, invigorating wind blowing in your face making you want to stay on the field. Whether it’s the coaches screaming at you for making a mistake or complimenting you for making a big hit. This is my life… This is what I do…This is football. As young boy I always had an interest in sports, (especially football) but I didn’t have anyone to motivate me. My mother was always busy trying to support me, and my two younger brothers, Quran and Leonis, on her own, and she didn’t have enough time to enroll me in any sports in kindergarten through fifth grade school years. I watched young boys play football, noticing all of their skills and natural abilities. As I watched, I wondered how was I to compete with them? I had no idea how to play football, and no one to help me practice. I watched football every day, but that still didn’t help. I needed practice. As I watched the other children, it made me angry to see them play, knowing that I couldn’t. It felt as if someone was stabbing my heart and pride with a knife. With no father figure, I had no idea what to do, and no idea how to practice, so I felt like a lost soul. At the age of nine, I started to study football more on my own to enable me to become a better athlete. Even though I didn’t have a father figure at the time to practice with, (or anyone at that) I still watched upcoming football games. My favorite NFL team at this age was the Pittsburgh Steelers, and my favorite NCAA team was the LSU Tigers. At this young age, I’ve always wondered,
“What would it feel like to become a Pro on television in a sport where millions of people watched?” I’ve always had questions about football, but yet no one to answer them. But this all changed for the better when my mother met my step father during my sixth grade school year. When my mother met my stepfather, my life changed for the better( including my football career). At first I didn’t I like him. When my mother first introduced me to him, in my head I thought, who is this strange man? Why is even here? At first, I didn’t trust him.After all, What was keeping him from walking out on us like my real father? Every time I came home from school, I always greeted my stepfather but we rarely had conversations. Then one day I came home from school, I saw him firmly planted on the couch in the living room. His eyes were superglued to the 3D television, watching the warriors devastate each other on the field in the Dallas Cowboys versus New York Giants game. As I was going to room to take a nap (because of the ninety degree weather that was charring my skin), he stopped and said “hey, sit down watch this game with me”. I wanted tell him to fuck off because first of all I hardly knew him, second I definitely didn’t want sit in his vicinity, and third it was hot and I was exhausted from walking home in the ninety degree weather in the burning sun. But I chose not to say that and instead keep in my head to prevent myself from being slung out the window. So I sat and watched the game with my stepfather while drinking a Gatorade and eating a bag Cheetos. After I demolished every sip of the Gatorade and gobbled down every last Cheeto in the bag my stepfather spoke to me. He said “do you like sports”? I responded “Hell Yeah”. Then he told me I shouldn’t talk that way, that I should have respect, he said sternly.“ I hardly even know you, why in God’s name should I listen to you”? Then he told me to stop cursing like a ghetto hoodlum. I don’t why but that had shut me up.The reason I shut up is because I was behaving like a hooligan.
My behavior was unchecked by my always working mom and I needed a stern father figure to correct my attitude and behavior. When me and stepfather started socializing more, before he taught me about football, he taught me about respect. He taught me to greet people, to open the door for females, to smile even though you might be having a bad day. Because of this, I started to feel like a better person. I started to have more friends and, teachers actually treated me with respect in my sixth grade school year. In the middle of my sixth grade year, I signed up for pee-wee football. I had no experience playing football, but since I was doing better in school my stepfather decided I deserved help. I trusted that he would train me well because he had experience in football. Back when my stepfather was in highschool, he played quarterback for Garland High School. He also played basketball so I knew he was going to make me run to my feet fell off. My sixth grade year was my first year playing football. I played for the O’banion Bisons. My very first game was absolutely horrible, me and my team were getting blown out forty to zero. The opposing team had scored twice on my side and I started to lose faith. That game, just that one game, made me want to quit football altogether. Then my coach walked up to me and said “Pull your head out of your ass, go out there and play some god damn football!” This angered me at first, but at the same time it pepped me up. That same game I caught an interception and made five tackles. When I heard my name being announced by the announcer, that made me feel proud and confident of myself. Then, I saw my parents smiling down at me from the bleachers. Their smiles were as bright as the sun. The bombardment of cheers and claps from the crowd fueled me, I felt like they made me stronger and kept me pushing forward like a train. This is when I felt like football was my jacket, and I wore it everyday
I continued to play football throughout middle school, but when I played high school football at South Garland High everything changed. Everything was new to me, like being a toddler again. Everyone seemed much bigger especially the Juniors and Seniors. For example, some players were six feet tall weighing at three hundred pounds. They gigantic in my eyes and when they were on the field they were like spartans going into battle or like chaotic titans fighting gods. When new freshmen was coming in to play football, the Varsity and JV players would do an initiation to all the incoming freshmen. Basically they would kick our asses(not for real but it still hurt a little), then we would be part of the team. There were lots of changes in high school football, you had to be more disciplined, mature and the workouts were brutal. The worst thing I hated was conditioning after practice, then when I got home I had to condition again. It felt like someone was lighting my lungs on fire. We also had to lift weights if your arms and body wasn’t sore after a workout you either didn’t work hard enough or you need to stay after school to work out more.After I was done running my legs felt like spaghetti, and when I was done lifting weights my body felt stiff and hard as a wooden plank. All the coaches were more strict and they all had there own personality. The head coach Cox was a very interesting to me. Even though his speeches and lectures were hours long he always had something important to say. He always said he didn’t care about a players natural ability, but he cared about effort. He believed that every player on the team had potential no matter if you were the weakest or strongest. He always liked saying “It’s Lombardi Time!”, that was his favorite quote. He would say it right before we go to practice in a loud stern voice. The players that had already been there for two or three years I had looked up to, not like I do my stepfather but someone that was my age, played my position and had experience on field. Everytime I saw those Varsity players work on the field, those warriors, they seemed remarkable to me. Every
little piece of advice about football they gave me I tried to use when I was on the field. Sometimes it didn’t work but it was always worth a shot to try. There were two Varsity players that caught my attention, There names were Darren Thai and Josh Simms. They caught my attention because they were so small but they had so much heart, showed so much effort, and that made look seven feet tall. I was astonished how well they played for there size, and that showed me no matter how big or small you are you still can be great. Well this is my story. This is the cry of a warrior‌ This is football!!!!