Due to a lot of money issues and my Grandmother's knee replacement surgery, I'm not playing football for the high school this year. Since the school went way over the cap, added on to the decreased budget of PA schools, the school had to cut a lot of teachers and extra classes. They are also making you pay 150 dollars for football, and paying that much money to sit on the bench is not worth it. One of the troubling things last year was getting to and from practice. I pissed off the coach occasionally because I couldn't make it. Although my four senior pals always drove me home when they could, and when they couldn't one of the assistant coaches helped me out, great group of seniors, and that assistant coach was a hell of a guy. Sadly that assistant coach jumped ship to another school, and being that they the seniors...were...well seniors, they won't be there.
I don't think the juniors (seniors this year) are as tolerant as the seniors last year, and wouldn't have been willing to drive me home. I'm hoping by next year my Dad will be home, and he'll be able to do it. Although I'm hoping I'll have my driver's license by next year, so I would be able to drive to and from practice/weight lifting myself. That would be great, getting rides is one of the main things holding me back. Anyways, although I can't play for the High School this year, I hope they have a good year. Although honestly, they're going to fucking suck. The coaching staff is horrible, and the only reason we went 7-2 last year is because the seniors coached themselves. That terrible head coach was going to get fired...a matter a fact after we lost the first two games, I heard he'd get fired by the end of the year. Then what do you know...we go on a winning streak. Not only did those seniors coach themselves, but the coach also got scheduled us to face a bunch of cupcake teams. Coach looks like a hero, he brings the school to the first playoff appearence, and he looks like the man. Although in reality, I and everyone on the team knows it was the assistant coaches and the seniors who did it, and all the only thing that coach has is his hic family, and his shitty Wishbone offense.
A wishbone offense! He ran a wishbone offense for a fucking high school. On top of that, we didn't even get playbooks. How the hell am I supposed to ever prove myself on the field without knowing the plays. We wrote 5 plays down in a notebook, and I didn't even get a pen. It was...it was literally a miracle that we went to the playoffs. Needless to say, the entire school jumped on the bandwagon, the playoff game was sold out...although after halftime they all stared leaving when they saw we were getting the living shit kicked out of us. We lost in the first round. Now I admit, we did have a few good and close games last season, and I give a lot of credit to the players, but that head coach is a fucking joke.
First practice of October, last year. I had my Grandma go out to Dicks and buy one of those pink breast cancer sweatbands. My Great Grandma fought through Breast Cancer and I wanted to support everyone else who did as well. Guess what, the head coach made fun of me. What kind of sick fuck makes fun of a kid wearing a pink breast cancer sweatband? A lot of the team members though it was pretty cool though. One kid though, he asked me why I was wearing a NFL equipment wristband, when I wasn't in the NFL. What kind of stupid fucking question is that? Well, I asked him why he and all the other kids on our team wear NFL equipment gloves, when they're not in the NFL. That shut him up.
He's a good kid too, the one from above. He's going into his senior year next year. He saved the game twice in a row the last two games of the regular season. It was close, and the other team was going on one last hail mary drive, he picked it off and sealed the game. He did this twice like I said, pretty exciting. No doubt he'll be one of the captains this year. As I was saying though, I hope they have a good season. I also hope everyone on the team understands why I can't play. I signed up at the end of last year, and was at the spring practices they had, but things changed over the summer. I was never officially signed up, I still needed to go to the Doctors and pay for the physical. I hope they don't think I quit though, they don't like it when people quit, and neither do I. But I figured since the season never started before I decided not to play, I wasn't really quitting.
I won't be away from football...holy shit. As I'm typing this, it's pouring down fucking rain, like seriously pouring down. I just heard a huge ass thunder strike...scared the shit out of me. Like...it was seriously fucking huge, a bunch of lighting too. Honestly though, I love the rain. Not when I'm outside in it though, and not when it fucks up my cable, but when it's just simple, mild rain, it's relaxing. Especially during the day. Anyways, I won't be away from football. Last year (My freshman year in high school) was my first year playing tackle. We were actually supposed to have a freshman team, but the freshman in my class are all fucking assholes, and decided not to play, leaving 14 freshman on the team...not enough for a full team. So we had to join the Varisty team, and I didn't get any experience besides practice.
But during the fall of 7th grade, I signed up for a great program called i9 sports. It really helped me learn the game more, I already knew the game from Madden, but it helped a lot more. My coach reminded me of David Koechner, looked a lot like him. Hang on, anybody who responds this post requesting a cookie, I will give them a cookie. This is just to see if anyone is paying attention, and with this fucking word fort I doubt it. Then the other coach...the other coach looks like the Dirty Jobs guy in the picture above. A lot of the coaches have the kids on the team. It's a really easy program, it's every Saturday, and you just practice for like..25 minutes before the games. Games are about 40 minutes, It's flag football by the way. Games are about 40 minutes, and it's played on a 50 yard field. I think I was 12 when I first signed up, but I was put in the 13-15 section. They have a bunch of different divisions playing at the same time around the field. 4-5 year olds, 6-7 year olds, 8-9 year olds, 10-12 year olds, and 13-15 year olds.
Our team...it was horrible. Some kid came...wearing fucking jeans. It was obvious he was some form of trailer trash. He had long hair, and he was wearing jeans. We didn't win one game that year, not one game. I remember the trailer trash kid...he asked the coach if he could play QB. Now this league, it's all about the kids, no about winning. No fundraisers either, just the kids. Everyone is supposed to get to play the same amount too, all that cheesy shit. So the kid asks my coach if he could play QB. My coach admitted to me that he should've said no, especially in the situation of the game. It was a close game, and there wasn't much time left. But my coach decided to let him be QB. By the way, the coaches are in the huddle. They had like...a little dry erase board where they write the plays down. It's a really simple league.
So the coach probably thinks, I'll call a hand of play...what could go wrong? So Mr. Trailer trash turns around to hand the ball off...but he turns the wrong way. Now there's 5 kids on the field (per team), so there's no line. They have blitz rules, but that motherfucker was fast, he runs in, takes the ball out of the kids hand who was trying to hand it off, and runs into the endzone. Like the trailer park king just stood there, wondering what just fucking happened. He wasn't wearing jeans anymore, that was just the first day. We didn't win one game. I think there's like 8 games in all, maybe 9, but I think 8. It was horrible, but considering there was only three teams in our age division, there was one play off game. The two teams with the lowest record, the top team got in automatically. It was a close game actually, a lot of the games were close, but we lost. After we lost, the two coaches had all of us go out to eat at some restaurant down the road. I had this big huge fucking basket of some vintage cheesy fries. I had fun none the less, I actually almost got a touchdown that year. I only had..I think one touch down. I converted an extra point once too. I was more of a defensive guy, but you play both sides of the ball.
I played the Spring season later that year, and since I loved the coaches so much, I requested to have them this year. We won every game. We went undefeated, and then won the championship. I still have the trophy. The spring season is a lot more interesting, because most of the kids who play tackle football play in the spring to stay sharp during the off season. Lot's of good players on that team, and a lot of good players on the other teams too, it was fun. Then my 8th grade year, the David Koechner coach said he had to get out of the country, and was moving to Australia. I think it was for his job, he was a good coach though. He and I got along well, he'd always come to me for advice, and I'd also make sarcastic comments about his stupid decisions during the games. He coached one game for us, but the assistant coach took over. At the same time, some new guy who had two of his little midget sons was the second assistant coach. He put them in, pretty much the entire game.
That's when I started to get frustrated. You have a 14 year old beast on defense, who is barely getting in because Mr. I want my 12 year old sons to do good in flag football is too busy drinking out of his "World's greatest dad" mug to realize he's being an unfair bitch. It wasn't that bad though, because the other assistant coach was still there...but not for long. That spring season he didn't coach, his son and I were still on the same team though. By the way, that season we went undefeated, there were 4 teams. Has been four teams ever since. Well that next spring season he didn't coach, and I was with a completeley different coaching staff. My coaches here, were complete jackasses. They completely missed the memo about the "Everyone get's the same playing time", all this guy cared about was winning. He didn't even put his own son in! His son was sitting on the sidelines picking grass. Kind of reminded me of the coach in bad news bears, who was yelling at his son and then his mom took the son and left.
It was almost exactly like that. His divorced wife was on the sidelines always talking to my grandmother, about how her son is complaining he doesn't get to play. Although quite frankly, my grandmother is a hypocrite. If it was me not getting to play, she'd be pissed because she thinks I'm good enough to play, but if some other kid was complaining he didn't get to play, she'd say that he shouldn't be whining and that he's not good enough. She doesn't say it like that at all really, but she does to an extent. Although I think she agreed with the wife at that time, that was back when I was on the other team though, not when I was on his team.
Now I saw it first hand though. Now I'm all for winning, even if you're not putting me in who is dominating all those little 13 year olds, but like I said earlier, this guy is an asshole. He brought a bunch of crackers with him during the playoff game, and said if we win then he'll give them to us. We won, so I got to have his magnificent crackers. Then, in the championship game, he said that if we won, we'd go to his house and have a pizza party. I couldn't care less about the fucking pizza party, I just wanted another trophy. The trophies were bigger then they were a year ago by the way. We lost the championship game, and we got no pizza party.
No idea who the coaches are going to be this year, but I'm excited to play. I'm 15, and this could be the last year I can play. Depending on if it starts before my birthday next year, I think I'll still be able to play one last time that spring season. But if we win this season, maybe I won't. You know...retire as a Superbowl champ? Kind of silly though, I hope I do end up getting another trophy though, I'll probably be the oldest/biggest kid there. That last season I was talking about, with the asshole coach. There was also an asshole kid there too. He was 16, and they let him play. He played QB, and he ran around the backfield acting like he's Michael Vick, and it looked like was some All Star, but if people opened their eyes, they'd realize he was playing with a bunch of 12-13 year olds. The first game that year, I thought I was going to get my first interception, the ball was coming right to me, and I was waiting for it..waiting for it, and BAM. He runs right in front of me and grabs it.
Nobody on the field realized this 16 year old just stole an interception from a kid 3 years younger then him. I was fucking pissed off, and it wasn't his first/only interception either. Fucking asshole got at least 5 picks a game. I was actually glad we lost the championship that year, mostly because I barely played, and because of the coach. Can't forget Mr. 16 year old as well. Anyways, I think I'm going to do pretty good this year. Especially with my skills getting somewhat better from playing tackle last year, and I have a pair of gloves. Believe it or not, gloves work. At least for me, I don't think gloves help everyone, but they help my passing, and they help my catching. I'm not QB, I played WR last year as a freshmen, I tried playing Quarterback once during flag for one play during practice...I threw a pick.
It will hopefully be fun though, and I'm the type of guy who's got a lot of sportsmanship too. That's the main thing that team from the last spring season didn't have, sportsmanship. I'm not going to be running over and stealing picks from some little kid. I just hope I'm not to aggressive though, I was a really aggressive player before, it didn't show a lot, but occasionally I'd do some crazy shit. I never tackled anyone, but I was still pretty aggressive.
If anyone read that whole thing, I'll tell you...you deserve a fucking medal. I have a little message somewhere in there, and if you find it you'll know what to do. I really need to get a fucking blog or something.