The NFC B-Day Chat Thread

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Hi BertS - not sure about celebrating something special - Phils getting a new fishing pole? Thats about all i know of. Maybe Debby will be celebrating her back and eyes being back to normal, or Blooie might have an update?
 
Good Morning!

I'm celebrating SIX days off from work beginning today
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since we seem to be lacking for something to celebrate.


as most of you know, I tend to keep most of my personal stuff to myself, and while I may lean a bit towards the prideful side (weakness), I try not to brag, but.......


my 11 year old, has played peewee football since he was in kindergarden. I was and am fortunate enough to have coached him all the way along the journey. A little backstory on the boy. He's always been fiercely competitive, and growing up in a football family. His Pappa (me), his Bubba (oldest son) and another older brother all played organised football. So it's no small wonder, a competitive drive and a football family, it has brought us to this. He has also been fortunate enough to usually be one of the quickest kids on any field he played on. Now the downside for him, is he is in the lower bracket of size. He's almost always been one of the smaller players on the field, in any of the age brackets he's played, and this still holds true. What he brings to the proverbial football table, is this: the size of his heart. See, this boy, doesn't know he's the smallest guy on the field. In tackling and blocking drills at practice, he refused to go against similar sized players, instead, always moving places in line, to challenge the biggest players on the team. A quiet kid, verbally, his natural tendency, is to let his performance speak for itself.



Jump to spring, last year, and we were fortunate enough to be asked to join a select team, and again, I was lucky enough to be able to help coach. A far cry from our local school based peewee football team out in the country. Here he was playing with kids, that had talent. Kids that have the same football drive. Kids that are fast, scary fast. I mean kids that are in the 5th grade that would be faster than kids in the 8th grade. Here, tho one major difference, is many of these kids had SIZE. Some pushing the scale at 200#(yes in the 5th grade) and many reaching heights of nearly 6'. So once again, he stepped into the fray in the only way he knew how, with every thing his peewee sized body could.

Now a little about these select leagues. While the competition is great, and it builds better players, they are allowed, no many times encouraged to show boat. We've all seen the NFL games. A player makes a routine tackle, and jumps up celebrating like they just made the game winning sack. Or a player gains a couple of yards for a first down, and the celebration is on like they scored the game winning touchdown. Enough said. In this instance, these leagues it was no different. Now we were fortunate, this team we played on, was composed of fairly modest kids, most of them from many different rural communities, although about an hour drive from our house.

I couldn't be prouder of the way his attitude remained unchanged, thru good and bad. He was a defensive starter, and split time on offense, in many different skill positions. Bringing big hits, and good blocks, while not his usual star status, he was more than a contributer, and really stepped his game up, he had to. Then in the fall, our team was fortunate enough to even be able to be seen on TV, on a silly reality tv show, about youth football. I'm not going to get into the drama, many parents would bring, things they would say, just to get their mug on tv for a few brief minutes.

This last spring, he really got a chance to shine. He was still in the same age bracket, but now he was a year older. Still not much larger, but he knew what to expect. While carrying the ball for us, he was never driven backwards, being tackled. He always fell forward. (you football folks will understand how important that is). On defense, he truly turned into a beast of an outside linebacker. He got noticed. So here we stand. Modest kid, love of the game, and he gets an opportunity to play with some of the best football players his age, in the southern part of the country.


400



I apologize for the chapter book post.
 
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