Luke Parrish
Dr. Melinda McBee
English 1301.HY7
2 November 2013
More Than a Game High school football is much more than just a game, and that is what many people do not understand. After the games people will say “It’s just a game, don’t be so hard on yourself,” but it is much more than that. Football is a way of life, especially in Texas. Football is a religion here and people take it very seriously. There is more to it than just the physical attributes needed to play. There is much more of a mental side to it as well as emotional. It is also very time consuming and many people fail to understand just how many hours’ football players and coaches put in throughout the week. The preparation starts in June the summer before the season. There are many different camps that the players need to attend if they want to get any playing time. These camps have vigorous lifting and running to try and work off the summer weight that most kids gain during high school. Many of the players are out of shape and this is the start of getting back into football shape. It is not mandatory to come to these different camps, but if a player wants to succeed and be a part of the team and get to play, it is expected to show up and put a face with a name. This is also a time when the relationships begin to build. Teammates begin to get comfortable with each other and get a grasp on what kind of player the other will be and they lay a foundation for that brotherhood that is going to become very strong the next 6 months and will stay with them for the rest of their lives. After the camps end in June, the month of July is a time for staying in shape and lifting a lot. Many of the times the leaders of the team will call workouts and lead the workouts because the coaches have restrictions for coaching in the summertime. These private team bonding workouts are yet another way for teammates to get to know each other and build stronger relationships. It also allows the leaders of the team to know who they can hold accountable and who will be there for them on the field when it is gut check time. If the players do not show up it shows that they cannot count on them during the season. An important part in football is building trust between teammates, and what turns a good team into a great team is if they have trust that the other guy is going to do his job. The end of July hits and August rolls around. August is a great month for football; Two-A-Days starts and the team gets to begin practicing and pushing each other in order to get better for the season. The boys begin to act like brothers and get irritated with each other during Two-A-Days and practices after that. It is much like any sibling relationship; if he or she is around that person long enough, they get under each other’s skin. This is just another example that brings the team members closer together. After they are done fighting, they earn respect of each other by moving past it for the greater good of the team. Towards the end of August the team has two scrimmages and this is essentially a practice for everyone to prove what they can do, and it is a great opportunity for the coaches to see what the team will be like throughout the year without the game counting towards their record. The first, second, and some third team members each get a chance for playing time during scrimmages. The season officially begins on the first week of school. This is where the mental part of football comes into play. The players have to juggle school work and football practice throughout the year. Many times they have to get up before school, get a workout in, go to school, then have another workout after school. It makes for long days during the week and barely leaves time for homework. This makes it especially hard on the players because if they do not pass they do not play. The first week drags on while everyone looks forward to the first game to roll around on Friday. The practices usually let out sooner as the week goes on, depending on how prepared the coach thinks the team is. On Thursday the Varsity will do a walk through to make sure everyone is aware of their assignments while the Junior Varsity gets ready to play. When the season starts almost every team has a team dinner of some sort, usually on Thursdays. The players parents will take turns cooking a dinner and have the whole team come to their house to eat and start the preparation for war on Friday. This adds yet another element to the relationships being built throughout the year that are significant to the players’ years after they are done playing.
On Friday, school is usually just a blur and many of the players just go through the motion, just waiting for game time to arrive. The game finally comes and it is a time for the players to put these relationships they have built to the test. There is a stereotype people assume that football players are dumb. But in order to play, there are many assignments one must learn throughout the week, a football player has to be very smart and quick minded in order to remember all that was learned the past week and throughout the season. When I was on the field, all my worries went away and there was no stress and it was like I was a kid again. It is a great feeling to have when I was out there and all I worried about was whether we would win or lose. I was not thinking about where my life would be in a couple years, I was not worried about the homework I had to finish that weekend, and my mind just clears and does not worry about anything besides what I had to do to succeed at that moment.
The great thing about football is that besides how athletic or strong or genetically gifted someone is, effort and heart tend to beat out talent. I always decided to give all I had every time I stepped on the field because I was not sure if it would be my last. If I gave it all I had then I would have no regrets when it was said and done. One of my favorite quotes from the movie “Friday Night Lights” is, “being able to look your friend in the eye, and know that you didn’t let them down, because you told them the truth. That truth is that you gave everything that you could there wasn’t one more thing you could’ve done.” I can relate to that quote because it is proving that if someone gives all their effort, than they will not have any regrets when it is all over.
The hard thing about high school football, especially in Texas, is that the kids work so hard for twelve years and it all disappears as soon as they graduate. Most kids start at age 6 playing pee wee football and they fall in love with the game. George Koonce, an NFL linebacker, said it best; "It hits home with me because I was totally engulfed in the role of being a football player," Koonce said. "My mom got me involved in Pop Warner when I was 9 years old.” (Thompson, P. 10) Guys work so hard to make Junior Varsity, then Varsity teams and all of the hard work, whether it pays off or not, just disappears after the last game and everything that they had ever known, and what most of them lived for is gone in the blink of an eye. By the time many of them are seniors, the time has flown by and it feels like a train just hit them. They will never see it coming, and if they do, there is nothing they can do to slow it down or try and stop it. It is inevitable.
High school football is good for the kids to learn and be a part of a team and it allows people to learn to become leaders in life after football. Many football players become very successful in life after football because of the relationships they have built over the years and the leadership skills they have learned from the coaches helping them out and turning them into great young men. Football is a good source for young men to learn more than just the game, they learn a lifestyle that can help them in the real world.

Works Cited
Thompson, Adam. "FOOTBALL: Life After Football." Sun Journal [New Bern, NC] 27 May 2012: n. pag. Ebscohost. Web. 05 Nov. 2013.