My Body My Weapon My Shame Analysis

Banks Jenkins

My Body, My Weapon, My Shame He was born to play football, someone who is 270 pounds and five percent body fat and only 19 years old and could go anywhere to play football. He went to a big ten college, Michigan. Now Elwood Reid was a man of hard work and discipline and would never give up. He worked hard ever single play from whistle to whistle. Even when he was in server pain he would never give up because he didn’t want to be called a quitter. Now there were two parts to Reid, one part of him wanted to belong or fit in with the team or be one of the “fellas”. Reid went to parties and he drank beer and liquor and did all the bad stuff just to fit in. The second part of him loved to read books and enjoyed going to class but never want to be himself. He ended up beating his body to the end and could no longer play. So after college he moved to Alaska to get away from football and start a new life, Therefore, Football is the best way to learn self discipline and character. Football Is also is a great way of learning what hard work means and in order to put hard
work in you have to be able to put your body on the line. Now don’t think football is just a sport for hitting people and putting your body in pain, you can also make friends for the rest of your life and it also teaches life lessons. From the age of three years old I was brought up with the idea that football is everything. My dad had me in the backyard throwing a football that was bigger than my head. From the first time I ever stepped out on the practice field I was always told “boys, now in order to be a notable player you have to have discipline, show hard work and have character”. That saying stayed with me to this day and now I’m in college playing football and it will be there all my life. You have to have discipline when listening to what your coach teaches you what you have to learn to be great player. You have to have discipline watching the ball and not jumping off sides. Hard work ties in with discipline as well, I would stay after practice to catch balls and run routes because I wanted to be the best. Even on the weekends when nothing was going on I would be at some field running and getting better. “Domination through hard work man” for the coach of the big ten school. I have this one saying as well and it goes “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender”. Basically this makes me work hard and do the things I’m suppose to do while on and off the field. If everyone on a team has discipline, character and hard work you can have a successful team full of champions. Now I somewhat agree with Reid, but sometimes things go way too far.
This has to do a lot with character. My old high school coach school would say “what are you doing when nobody is looking”. I would go to a party and wonder sometimes, “dang I wonder what Coach Ru would say right now”. See now, Reid, when he would go to a party he always thought” I should be doing this right now”, I should probably leave”, but then he wouldn’t be part of the “fellas”. Now this is where its wrong just because someone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to do it too. This is basically saying if Billy jumps then I will. When I was out somewhere and something felt wrong I was always thinking what would happen if I got in trouble it could affect my family and my team. I mean I went out and partied but did it under control. The point I am trying to make is just do what feels right to you and be
yourself. You throw on your shoulder pads, put on your helmet and tie your shoes and your ready to play, hit and get hit. Reid was right about everything, you play with pain because if you don’t you will be called a quitter. I’ve learned to play with pain because football is a sport in which you’re going to get hurt. You’re throwing your body into people, getting knocked down. For example here at Catawba College there is always someone getting hurt during practice. Either it’s a hurt shoulder, hurt knee or getting the wind knocked out of them. But one thing that Elwood is wrong about is that when you get hurt things are more serious here. Coaches don’t call you quitters and team mates don’t make fun of you. When you get hurt here, it’s taken seriously you’re looked at, you have to be in the training room everyday twice a day. My point here is that football is a pain sport but you just have to live with it and except that there is going to be rough times but you just have to get through it. As you can see after what you read about Reid, getting a scholarship to college isn’t easy. But for me it was basically the same thing, I started out my freshman year on junior varsity. I was the starting wide receiver; I made awesome catches and was the best one on the field. I wasn’t the biggest, but have always been the tallest, but what made so good was all the hard work and discipline I had. But the last couple games of the season I got moved up to varsity which was awesome. The next year, my sophomore year, I finally got moved up to varsity at the beginning of the year. I really wasn’t playing so I worked my butt off in practice and it finally came through, by the start of our conference I was starting. Until then I never thought football would take me to college, but after that I was confident. My junior year came and I was all-conference, all-Mecklenburg and my coach was making highlight films and coaches were coming to see me and I was going to camps to showcase my talents. Senior year came and scouts were coming and one coach who really caught my attention was Coach Nick Toth from the Citadel. Citadel would have offered but I got screwed when a five year senior decided to return. It really made me mad, but when adversity is put in your way, you just have to stomp right over it. So here I am at Catawba now, on a full scholarship and I love everything about it. I am proof that you can be an individual and do what you love at the same time.