The Boys of Fall

Number One Son after a better game.con n kerr aug 23It’s fall in America and that means many things to me, deer hunting, Musky fishing, the skydiving season coming to a close but most importantly, Football.  Now I’m not really a big sports fan, I don’t follow many teams, I don’t know much about the players or statistics.  I love playing sports but I don’t spend much time watching them. That is except for the teams my kids play on and right now number one son is playing football.  He’s a starting tight end and the high school team and is having the time of his life.  Up until last Friday his team was undefeated and NOS had caught a lot of passes and fulfilled every fathers dream by scoring a touchdown in a high school football game.  He’s beat up but having a great season.  Friday night his team played their arch rivals for the conference championship.  They’re was a big buildup to the game, both teams were undefeated but the other team had beaten us the last five years in a row and it looked like this year might the year we had a chance to win.  The game was hard fought and at half time we were up 10-7.  The emotions were running high in the stands and I thought I was going to have a heart attack as they battled in the second half and the other team took the lead.  We fought hard but in the end it was the other team’s fans who were celebrating.  After the game my wife and I joined the other parents out on the field to console the boys on their loss.  It was quite a scene, sad sweaty boys covered in mud limping off the field in utter dejection.  NOS came up to me sobbing.  He took the loss hard, saying that he’d let his team down.  I tried to point out that he’d had a great game catching three passes for 45 yards and had done a great job blocking.  My words didn’t seem to make difference, they’d lost and were devastated.   I’ll give him a few days before talking to him about just how lucky he is to be part of something so wonderful and caring so deeply about it that losing seems like the end of the world.  I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat.  Their season isn’t over, even though they lost the conference championship they are still in the playoffs and their first game is this Friday.  They won’t have to face the school that beat them because they are a division one school and we are in division two.  I think going on to win a state championship would really help ease the sting of last Friday’s loss.  I don’t think I’ve done a very good job explaining just what it means to the kids to play football but the video below says it all.

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