When I first entered high school, I had no intentions of playing football. My friends who played pop warner had always urged me to play but I always decided to play baseball. One day towards the end of 8th grade I made the decision to play football. I remember the first day of weights during the summer, I was so nervous I almost felt sick. I knew a select few of people but had no idea how much I was about to change my life. When everyone reported that first day, we started off by lining up and taking attendance. I recall as I was standing there, an older burley man walked up and began to walk slowly past each one of us. It almost seemed as he was examining us like we were the “fresh meat”. As he walked by me, he looked me up and down, slapped my shoulder and kept walking. I thought to myself, damn, what have I gotten myself into. Once roll was finished, almost instantaneously this man began yelling in such a deep voice. He was running around asking how bad we wanted to be there and telling us how he was going to break us. Mid-sentence, he just flat out stopped. He cracked a grin while looking at each of us and said “ Guys, I’M KIDDING! My name is coach Hare and I will be your freshman football coach.” I will always remember that moment of relief when he said he was joking. Coach Hare after that become one of my idols. He epitomized how football coaches should conduct themselves. Throughout my four years playing football in high school, Coach Hare was my favorite coach. He knew when it was appropriate to goof off and when it was time to work. He was a player’s coach in that he cared about our well being, not only on the field but off as well. Although he was only the assistant coach on varsity my junior and senior years, he was the teams motivation to do well in football and academics because disappointing him was a horrible feeling. The example I am going to use of