Personal Narrative: My Sophomore High School Football
That moment when your nerves are going crazy, mostly in his stomach as the butterflies scattered around the walls of his gut. When you don’t know if things will go how you expect them to. The whole time the only thoughts running through my mind were what can go wrong. Thoughts were bouncing in my head about his teammates going to war without him. I just can't understand why he had to let them handle it on their own. I've played with them since the eighth grade and they have to go fight when I'm needed the most, all I can do is sit, cheer, and help the best way I can. I truly hate the feeling of helplessness, but at the same time I know I have to do what little I can do. It was two days until the first game of my sophomore high school football season. My team was pumped! we were going to play Glenville a team that embarrassed us the previous, a battle we relentlessly prepared for since the last game of our freshman year. The sun was beaming off my pads, radiating the heat to make practice seem even worse then it already was. I was exhausted and looking forward to the end of my last sweat poring practice for the week. Our team was repetitively executing plays to make sure they were like second nature to us on Friday. Then, creating an unknown peace, Wheeler yells, "Last Play!" The
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play was "Zebra Red Cross 22 Dive" which is a run to our halfback, me!, out of our dive series. I crouched over the ball as I jetted past the quarterback and ran the play so we could observe the changes we needed to make. I let out a sigh of relief because we were finished with the most dreaded part of practice; well, only until someone complained about not knowing their job on one of our pass plays. Coach Wheeler undoubtedly decided we needed to run through the final pass play before we perfected our defense. The play was quietly called in the huddle with intentions of getting it right. I ran the play through my mind while I tried to remember what the snap count was and what I was supposed to do for that play. The ball was snapped and I jolted to the left of our team's quarterback to set up his backside protection. Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed the defensive end raging toward the quarterback. I took one solid strong step into him while lowering my body and blasting off through his shoulder pads sending him stumbling into the line's pass protection. My shoulder was thrashed in reverse, leaving the rest of my body driving forward persisting with my block. I jerked back as if the inertia would spring my arm back into place. Gravity took over my knees leaving them no choice but to hit the ground. My arm was left dangling with no initial support; my only support now was my hand holding it closely to my side as if I could protect it from further harm.
Adrenaline took over my body like a natural anesthetic, momentarily taking my mind off of the pain. I didn't even bother getting up as the other players quickly scattered to the huddle. All that ran through my mind was, "My season is over, my sophomore year is ruined, and I won't be able to accomplish any of the goals I set for my last football season ever." I staggered to my feet with my arm limp by my side and walked to the sideline like a confused drunk looking for some spare change. I had to get off the field as soon as possible; I had to calm myself down and gain control of my thoughts. Coach Wheeler and Coach Bates rushed to me frantically questioning, "What happened, are you okay?"
I tried to gain enough composure to release a few words saying, "I hurt my shoulder."
At this point, I got nauseous and light headed, so I had to walk around taking deep breaths to resist whatever it was in my stomach from exiting out my mouth. The pain was starting to stir, making me very anxious to fix whatever was wrong with my shoulder. Coach Bates told me, "You have to calm down! You are going to go into shock!" I needed to chill if I was going to get rid of this thrashing sensation in my shoulder. I filled my lungs with as much air as possible, wrapped my right arm around Coach Bates arm, and screamed in agony as Coach Wheeler tried to put my arm back in the socket. He tried numerous times, each time making the pain intensify.
My Father, who is also a coach, decided we needed to go to the doctor to have it reset. While my brother was on the phone with my parents and next the doctor, the rest of my team was still slaving through the defensive plays; working until perfection.
My Father got off the phone and mumbled," You have got to be F****** kidding me!" as he angrily pushed the end button on his cell phone.
"The doctor on call won't even look at him. He told me we would have to figure something else out. We are going to have to take him to the emergency room." The terrifying words, "Emergency Room" made my mind rush with thoughts like, "My season is over, my Sophomore year is ruined." "Let's try again!" I roared. I have always had a phobia of emergency rooms; nothing good ever comes from them. The coaches decided to yank my arm around one more time. Like a habit, I squeezed Coach Bates arm between my bicep and forearm like I was trying to pinch it
off.
Coach Wheeler grabbed my arm and reassuringly told me, "Relax, you have to relax." I took one more deep breath relaxed as much as possible. Jerk! Yank! Jerk! Snap! It finally went in, but the pain was still blistering. I thought resetting it was supposed to make the pain go away. Coach Bates informed me, "We still have to go to the emergency room to make sure everything is set correctly." I sighed with disbelief and asked for some pain killers. "We can't give you any pain killers according to OHSAA," replied Coach John. This day was not going my way. My Father and Coach Wheeler helped me jump into my brother's truck. We dashed off towards the emergency room, driving as fast as the gutless truck could go. While pulling out of the high school, we saw my mom on her way to watch me practice. My Father calmly waved her down and explained to him what happened. My dad then decided to ride with us to University. On the trip down, the truck was throwing me around like a little rag doll, and the pain was growing.
I thought to myself, "I have never seen so much traffic on this road in my life," even though there was barely any cars on the road. As we patiently waited for the next gap between vehicles to pass. I felt like I had been in the truck for an hour when finally I looked up and saw the bright red and Wheeler sign saying, "Emergency Entrance" I sighed in relief and joy. When we entered, the nurse politely took me to an empty bed while my dad gave the secretary the proper information. I started to get very uncomfortable due to the long drawn out beeps from the heart monitor belonging to the elderly lady on the other side of the curtain. I thought she was going to croak at any moment. The nurse returned with a needle long enough to go through the top of my head to my stomach. "Whoa! What do you need that thing for?" I asked. The nurse replied, "We have to give you an IV so we can give you the proper pain killers needed to work on your shoulder." I hate needles with a passion, and this one looked like it could kill me. She took the needle and slowly stabbed it into my arm, making the needle disappear little by little. "Whew, not that bad," I thought. Using my new IV, they gave me some morphine in hope of relieving some of the pain, but their hopes were not fulfilled. In fact, it just made me feel like pain was fun. After this my mom showed up to confront me, while we waited for a doctor to see us.
The nurse came and got me once again except this time we went to go get x-rays. The x-rays were supposed to show me if my shoulder was correctly in place or not. I gently eased out of my bed and at the pace of a sloth and followed the nurse to the x-ray room. She had me hold my shoulder in numerous uncomfortable positions for the x-rays, making a few minutes seem like an eternity. After the x-ray process was done, I disappeared back to the disaster room. Now all we could do is wait. Unfortunately, we were not informed that there was only one doctor in the ER that night, and the wait would be a minimum 45 minutes long.
The pain was becoming extreme and my attitude was everything but positive about it. My father, knowing I was getting impatient, went out into the hall to find out what was taking so long. When he came back in he said, "This should help." My girlfriend at the time Diamond and her friend Janae had heard that I was in the ER and came to see me. I was delighted to see their comforting and beautiful smiles. Shortly after Diamond and Janae left, the doctor came strolling in while taking down some notes on his clipboard. He eased my x-rays on the light screen and then shot the news that my shoulder was set correctly in place. "Whew! No more cranking on the shoulder" I said laughing. Finally, I was released from the hospital and if it's up to me, I will never go back. The next week I had to get an MRI, to see if I did any further damage to my shoulder. Upon reading the results I was told that I tore the ligaments in my shoulder and that it would take four long weeks to heal. I was devastated. All that ran through my mind was, "My entire season is over, my sophomore year is ruined". There was so much disappointment in my mind that was associated with the loss.
All I could focus on was the feelings that were eating at my soul like a virus. The sounds of sniffling and feet cracking against the steel bleachers. Helmets and shoulder pads that were thrown to with flaring and disappointing emotions covered the locker room floor. He couldn't believe it, nor did he understand why he had to helplessly stand on the sidelines watching his team suffer their first loss of the degrading season. He sat out during the game when his team needed him the most against his high school rivals, Glenville. If only he would have been able to help, maybe he wouldn't feel so bad, but he did nothing at all. All of this nonsense could have possibly been avoided, if it wouldn't have been for the highlight practice play that caused all of this trauma.
play was "Zebra Red Cross 22 Dive" which is a run to our halfback, me!, out of our dive series. I crouched over the ball as I jetted past the quarterback and ran the play so we could observe the changes we needed to make. I let out a sigh of relief because we were finished with the most dreaded part of practice; well, only until someone complained about not knowing their job on one of our pass plays. Coach Wheeler undoubtedly decided we needed to run through the final pass play before we perfected our defense. The play was quietly called in the huddle with intentions of getting it right. I ran the play through my mind while I tried to remember what the snap count was and what I was supposed to do for that play. The ball was snapped and I jolted to the left of our team's quarterback to set up his backside protection. Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed the defensive end raging toward the quarterback. I took one solid strong step into him while lowering my body and blasting off through his shoulder pads sending him stumbling into the line's pass protection. My shoulder was thrashed in reverse, leaving the rest of my body driving forward persisting with my block. I jerked back as if the inertia would spring my arm back into place. Gravity took over my knees leaving them no choice but to hit the ground. My arm was left dangling with no initial support; my only support now was my hand holding it closely to my side as if I could protect it from further harm.
Adrenaline took over my body like a natural anesthetic, momentarily taking my mind off of the pain. I didn't even bother getting up as the other players quickly scattered to the huddle. All that ran through my mind was, "My season is over, my sophomore year is ruined, and I won't be able to accomplish any of the goals I set for my last football season ever." I staggered to my feet with my arm limp by my side and walked to the sideline like a confused drunk looking for some spare change. I had to get off the field as soon as possible; I had to calm myself down and gain control of my thoughts. Coach Wheeler and Coach Bates rushed to me frantically questioning, "What happened, are you okay?"
I tried to gain enough composure to release a few words saying, "I hurt my shoulder."
At this point, I got nauseous and light headed, so I had to walk around taking deep breaths to resist whatever it was in my stomach from exiting out my mouth. The pain was starting to stir, making me very anxious to fix whatever was wrong with my shoulder. Coach Bates told me, "You have to calm down! You are going to go into shock!" I needed to chill if I was going to get rid of this thrashing sensation in my shoulder. I filled my lungs with as much air as possible, wrapped my right arm around Coach Bates arm, and screamed in agony as Coach Wheeler tried to put my arm back in the socket. He tried numerous times, each time making the pain intensify.
My Father, who is also a coach, decided we needed to go to the doctor to have it reset. While my brother was on the phone with my parents and next the doctor, the rest of my team was still slaving through the defensive plays; working until perfection.
My Father got off the phone and mumbled," You have got to be F****** kidding me!" as he angrily pushed the end button on his cell phone.
"The doctor on call won't even look at him. He told me we would have to figure something else out. We are going to have to take him to the emergency room." The terrifying words, "Emergency Room" made my mind rush with thoughts like, "My season is over, my Sophomore year is ruined." "Let's try again!" I roared. I have always had a phobia of emergency rooms; nothing good ever comes from them. The coaches decided to yank my arm around one more time. Like a habit, I squeezed Coach Bates arm between my bicep and forearm like I was trying to pinch it
off.
Coach Wheeler grabbed my arm and reassuringly told me, "Relax, you have to relax." I took one more deep breath relaxed as much as possible. Jerk! Yank! Jerk! Snap! It finally went in, but the pain was still blistering. I thought resetting it was supposed to make the pain go away. Coach Bates informed me, "We still have to go to the emergency room to make sure everything is set correctly." I sighed with disbelief and asked for some pain killers. "We can't give you any pain killers according to OHSAA," replied Coach John. This day was not going my way. My Father and Coach Wheeler helped me jump into my brother's truck. We dashed off towards the emergency room, driving as fast as the gutless truck could go. While pulling out of the high school, we saw my mom on her way to watch me practice. My Father calmly waved her down and explained to him what happened. My dad then decided to ride with us to University. On the trip down, the truck was throwing me around like a little rag doll, and the pain was growing.
I thought to myself, "I have never seen so much traffic on this road in my life," even though there was barely any cars on the road. As we patiently waited for the next gap between vehicles to pass. I felt like I had been in the truck for an hour when finally I looked up and saw the bright red and Wheeler sign saying, "Emergency Entrance" I sighed in relief and joy. When we entered, the nurse politely took me to an empty bed while my dad gave the secretary the proper information. I started to get very uncomfortable due to the long drawn out beeps from the heart monitor belonging to the elderly lady on the other side of the curtain. I thought she was going to croak at any moment. The nurse returned with a needle long enough to go through the top of my head to my stomach. "Whoa! What do you need that thing for?" I asked. The nurse replied, "We have to give you an IV so we can give you the proper pain killers needed to work on your shoulder." I hate needles with a passion, and this one looked like it could kill me. She took the needle and slowly stabbed it into my arm, making the needle disappear little by little. "Whew, not that bad," I thought. Using my new IV, they gave me some morphine in hope of relieving some of the pain, but their hopes were not fulfilled. In fact, it just made me feel like pain was fun. After this my mom showed up to confront me, while we waited for a doctor to see us.
The nurse came and got me once again except this time we went to go get x-rays. The x-rays were supposed to show me if my shoulder was correctly in place or not. I gently eased out of my bed and at the pace of a sloth and followed the nurse to the x-ray room. She had me hold my shoulder in numerous uncomfortable positions for the x-rays, making a few minutes seem like an eternity. After the x-ray process was done, I disappeared back to the disaster room. Now all we could do is wait. Unfortunately, we were not informed that there was only one doctor in the ER that night, and the wait would be a minimum 45 minutes long.
The pain was becoming extreme and my attitude was everything but positive about it. My father, knowing I was getting impatient, went out into the hall to find out what was taking so long. When he came back in he said, "This should help." My girlfriend at the time Diamond and her friend Janae had heard that I was in the ER and came to see me. I was delighted to see their comforting and beautiful smiles. Shortly after Diamond and Janae left, the doctor came strolling in while taking down some notes on his clipboard. He eased my x-rays on the light screen and then shot the news that my shoulder was set correctly in place. "Whew! No more cranking on the shoulder" I said laughing. Finally, I was released from the hospital and if it's up to me, I will never go back. The next week I had to get an MRI, to see if I did any further damage to my shoulder. Upon reading the results I was told that I tore the ligaments in my shoulder and that it would take four long weeks to heal. I was devastated. All that ran through my mind was, "My entire season is over, my sophomore year is ruined". There was so much disappointment in my mind that was associated with the loss.
All I could focus on was the feelings that were eating at my soul like a virus. The sounds of sniffling and feet cracking against the steel bleachers. Helmets and shoulder pads that were thrown to with flaring and disappointing emotions covered the locker room floor. He couldn't believe it, nor did he understand why he had to helplessly stand on the sidelines watching his team suffer their first loss of the degrading season. He sat out during the game when his team needed him the most against his high school rivals, Glenville. If only he would have been able to help, maybe he wouldn't feel so bad, but he did nothing at all. All of this nonsense could have possibly been avoided, if it wouldn't have been for the highlight practice play that caused all of this trauma.