Personal Narrative: My First Football Team

As I woke up to the smell of French Toast and bacon while my mom was yelling for me to get in the shower, all I could think about was that days’ game. The moment I got to school, I immediately had to rush to the team meeting before class. While every other team meeting was the usual, brief,
“Y’all stay focused today now. We’ve got a ball game to play,” This one was different. It was homecoming, and we had to deal with all the distractions of the homecoming parade, pep-rally, and all of the alumni we had to meet during team warm-ups. During all of my classes, everyone, like usual, was asking, “Are y’all ready?” and “You think we’ll win?”
Just like every game, I responded that we were ready, although that may have been far from true.
After school we all had to meet in the locker room to get all of our stuff together and meet with our position coaches.
This included checking every strap and button on our pads, making sure we had our shoelaces, and making sure everyone’s minor injuries were taken care of with the trainer. Normally we would have time to sit outside the locker room and hang out with all of our friends and joke around, but Coach Owens stopped that quickly today and made everyone go inside. As I walked into the quarterback meeting, some of our key plays were drawn on the board. These seemed all to familiar for me, because I spent the whole night before with Sam, our other quarterback, going over our playbook and knowing where everyone is supposed to be on the field for each play. The next meeting I had to attend was the special teams meeting. I was used to these since I had been attending these since my freshman year as a starter on varsity as both the kicker and punter. Everything was the same. Making sure every hole was blocked for field goals and punts, making sure no one over-pursued on kick-off coverage, and just making sure we got the kick off without getting it
blocked.

During warm-ups, the atmosphere was absolutely stunning. Music was blaring over the P.A. system and students had already filled the stands with their painted bodies and oversized posters. Since Dewitt (my closest friend and long-snapper) and I were the first ones on the field to warm-up we were greeted by all of the alumni and the cheer from the whole crowd. With this in mind, we knew we had to take this serious and do everything we could to win the game. Which is exactly what we did.

The game started off with a twelve-minute drive by the (0-8) Tate Aggies that ended up with a turnover on downs at our two yard line. When we got the ball everything started off great with a pass from Sam to one our receivers for a forty-yard gain. After a few short gains by running the ball we were stopped at the twenty-yard line and forced to kick a field goal. As Dewitt and I entered the line-up and ran onto the field we knew that our warm-up was going to pay off with three points. While I waited for the ball to be snapped I knew I had to make this to give us some momentum and help us win a game that was very important to a lot of people. As the ball left my foot, I knew I didn’t even have to look to see that it went in. After a series of stalled drives by both teams, the second quarter again came down to a kick that would put us up six points going into half-time. Once again the thirty-five yard field goal was good that ended in a celebration with Dewitt, Myself, and the rest of our team. Coming out of the half with not a very comfortable lead, I knew I was going to have to keep doing my part to help my team win. The very first drive of the second half yet again came down to a field goal. This kick of thirty-seven yards left my foot terribly. As the ball was in the air I was cringing hoping that it was going to hook left and sneak in the uprights. When it rattled off of the uprights and went though the other side, I could stop holding my breath and just relax. With just four minutes left in the game and the ball in our possession, I knew we had to score just one more time to ice the game. Once again, we were faced with another fourth down and I just looked at Dewitt and laughed because I knew we had to do it again. With this only being twenty-seven yards it went through the uprights with ease to give us a 12-0 lead. As one last desperate drive by the Aggies failed our students ran on the field and celebrated a huge victory with the players and their parents. As the students were chanting our names and singing out fight song along with the band, our families were hugging us and telling us how proud they were of the victory. Looking at each other Dewitt and I once again laughed stating,
“Man that was fun.”
When we got back to the locker room, we celebrated with everyone by throwing our jerseys all over the place and enjoying the music from the always loud, star running backs’, locker. Conversations varied from who was partying where to how happy everyone was that we would not have practice this week.

This was one of the most memorable games of my high school career and it felt so good to score a twelve points to make my parents, my school, and the whole town proud.

Parents/Grandparents

Thru age 14

Being born in Memphis, TN and growing up in Marion, AR, I was raised around an extremely close-knit family that would do anything and everything for each other. From the first day I could chew and swallow solid food, my grandfather would always go to Big Johns restaurant to pick up the best catfish dinner in the world. My first memory of this wonderful dinner came one night where I could have got in a lot of trouble, but I was lucky because my grandparents loved me so much
As I had just finished with dinner and washed my hands I looked at my grandfather and said, “Hey poppa, let’s play some baseball.”
He looked at me smiling and said, “Ok Little Case.” (My whole family called me this because my dad’s name is also Case, therefore, making him Big Case.)
When I picked up the bat and waited on the pitch, I pretended like I was David Justice from the Atlanta Braves because that was my grandmother’s favorite team and player. As my “poppa” threw the pitch I swung as hard as I could and hit the ball in the dead center of the bat’s sweet spot. I thought nothing could go wrong playing baseball with my grandfather in the living room, but I was wrong. I heard the relatively soft ball hit my grandparent’s favorite lamp. This is when everything went to slow motion. The lamp rocked back and forth like a small earthquake had hit the floor beneath the table holding it up. When it leaned a little too much, it fell to the floor with me still running to first base, shattering the lampshade, and ripping the cord out of the wall. As soon as the reality of breaking their lamp hit me, I ran to them crying and apologizing. I knew they weren’t going to be mad but I still felt bad. They just rubbed my head and said, “Its ok, get back up to the plate and hit us another one.”

Once instance I remember with my grandfather, from my mothers side, was when I was twelve was going around helping him campaign for city office. Since he had been mayor for the longest time in Southaven, Ms everyone already knew him and it was too hard to walk around and meet people that he already knew. After walking around the whole town passing out flyers and shaking people’s hands, he took us to eat at Dales restaurant and treated to what seemed to be the best lunch I had ever eaten.

My parents are the most important people in my life, and there is not one thing that I would change about how they raised me. When I first learned how to ride my bike without training wheels my mom was in control by grabbing the back of my seat just to make sure I didn’t fall. This didn’t prove to be that helpful.
As I “stood” there with my base cemented three feet in the ground, I knew this kid was coming right at me full speed. With his dad and brother filming and his mother helping his balance, hitting me was still inevitable. I guess it was just meant to be. What did I ever do? I just stand here and let basketballs bounce off me all day and now this kid is going to hit me on a bike. After he hit me, he lay on the floor crying with a few laughs mixed in. His parents came running to him also laughing but caring about his safety too.
Hitting the basketball goal wasn’t one of the high points in my life but it was helpful in learning to ride a bike in that now I never take my feet off of the pedals or my hand off of the brake.

Sunday mornings were always the same for us. Every morning we would wake up to my grandparents cooking biscuit and gravy with eggs and toast. This is what everyone looked forward to before church. When we finished I put on the clothes that my mom had laid out for me. At the time I had no idea how much I liked these clothes until looking back on it. The outfit I remember the most was a green sweater with khaki pants and my favorite duck head shoes that I wore every Sunday. When we got to church my brother and I headed to Sunday school with all of our friends and my parents and grandparents went to what I then called “Big-Church.” Church was very important to our family in that everything my parents were raised on was based on religion. This to me when I was old enough to understand it was extremely important and formed my parents into who they are today.

Ages (14-present)

When I was fourteen years old my family endured one of the most tragic moments anyone could ever go through. My uncle passed away of brain cancer. This hit my dad extremely hard, and at that moment he realized that you should take nothing for granted. You could lose someone who means the most to you at any moment. While sitting at his funeral, I looked over at my dad and witnessed him crying for the first time in my life.
Sitting in the pew watching my dad cry was one of the worst moments of my life. Although my dad was and is very independent, he looked up to his brother and wanted to be like him in many ways. As I reached over to grab his hand, he just looked at me so thankful that one part of him was still there.
One year later, we were once again emotionally distraught after the news that my grandmother had also developed brain cancer and breast cancer. Going to see her was one of the hardest things I had ever done. The grandmother that I was used to was totally different. She was wearing a wig because of her chemo treatments and suffering physically because of the toll it was taking on her. We knew it was only a matter of time and we just wanted her to hold on until she couldn’t any longer. When she left us for a better place I could see another huge piece of my father dying with it. Seeing this emotional strain on my parents was hitting me hard also.
Everything I did was for them and all I wanted to do was make them proud of me.
Seeming impossible, this same scenario was again confronted us one year later. My grandfather passed away of lung cancer. I had no idea my family could or would endure this much pain. From the second he was diagnosed until the day he was buried and even till this day all we think about is how lucky we are to have each other.
As we rode in the family funeral car to the escort of the whole towns police service, we sat in the car mesmerized at the fact that so many people cared about him in a way that we did. Since he was the chief of police there were at least four police officers at each stoplight or intersection standing outside of their cruiser with their hands over there heart. The whole family just looked at each other and cried because we knew how much he was loved and how many lives he had touched. The most overwhelming point of his funeral was the twenty-one gun salute. At this time all of our emotions came together at once with the last gunshot. BANG!