No, that’s not me that’s my mini-me, and yes he plays. How far he will go in the sport of his choice will be up to him, and hopefully not me spoiling it for him.
When you start playing football you come in thinking its only about making the team. You have your own dreams of making tackles, scoring touchdowns, intercepting passes, throwing bombs, catching touchdowns, maybe blocking, or running for a thousand yards. Once you get in and stick around, you find out its more than individual pursuits, its about teamwork, and role players, listening, and stepping up when your number is called.
I started playing this game not because I was in love with the game, but I played because my friends played. I loved being with my friends. As I fell further down the football rabbit hole, I started to find out that I could play the game. I became a leader, I became a role player, one of the guys, I found out that I could be one of the guys and still maintain my individual identity. I didn’t have to become a one dimensional guy, I could be myself and still enjoy playing football.
If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.
I FELL IN LOVE WITH FOOTBALL
Now that playing football is over I feel empty, but it’s normal. It’s normal to feel lost for anyone who participates in something for a long period of time. Your world does change, a large part of my world is gone. I think we downplay the amount of time we invested in the game, whatever your game may be, hell it could anything, it could be medicine and now you are no longer able to be the surgeon. You could be in the military and now you are no longer able to be in the field. Now I use my power to help other young players, and families to move forward as they try to achieve their goals in the sport. I have directly helped the following athletes and many more chase their dreams.
- Stefan Charles, DT Buffalo Bills, I taught him how to get into a stance when I coached him for the Surrey Rams. I told him the third day of camp, “kid you can play in the NFL if you act right.” So far so good.
- Ryan Lucas, Roughriders, I met Ryan when he was 18 and coming out of high school. Years later we were both playing beer league flag game and I couldn’t understand why this big great moving athlete was playing in a flag league. I called Craig Smith, Ryan later got signed, and got a Grey cup ring with the Roughriders.
- Brayden Lenius, junior, UW starting wr. His mom asked for help to get him into the NCAA. I made calls, emails to friends back home next thing you know he’s in LA ballin, and officially on the radar.
There are a lot of people who could have stepped in to help these guys, they didn’t. You find in life people want to be part of a success story, but no one wants to do the work behind the scenes.
This site is really all about helping, inspiring, education, and growth for the readers, contributors, and the editor.
Football like life, you have to grind to perfect the skills, and the fundamentals to get the opportunity to shine..