The quaterback| Mladen Pecakovski
“The only thing you need for this sport is heart.”
He puts on his jersey, ties up his shoes, and walks onto the grass field. With a ball in his hand, he gets ready into a position to throw the ball to his fellow teammate.
After long hours of studying and doing projects, Mladen Pecakovski walks out of his dormitory with a new goal for the day, getting into practice and developing a better form and technique. He throws the ball and follows its movement as it passes from one side of the field into the hands of his teammate.
“It is one of my favorite things to do in the sport. The action itself is the most important thing within the sport.”
As his friends call him, Mladenkata is a 22-year-old senior at the American University in Bulgarian (AUBG), majoring in Business Administration and minoring in Information Systems. He first fell in love with football when he was back in middle school and was able to fully give in to his passion for the sport ever since he came into AUBG.
“I lived in the USA for about a year when I was in middle school, and there I saw what American football is. I got invited to parties to watch football and the Super Bowl and I found that it was a very interesting sport. I tried to keep up with it through the years, and when I came here, I saw the opportunity to play and started doing so with the people from the club AUBG Griffins.”
He shifts his eyes towards the ball coming his way and quickly cauches it in his hands. He explains that he and his teammates were all self-thought and that they are practicing and trying to become better because they love to play the game.
“This experience brings us fun, lots of fun. We also find really good connections and besides that, we learn new skills that you don’t necessarily look for in general. You learn how to lead, how to take action. You learn how to listen to other people that know better than you and you learn plenty of random skills that are surprisingly useful, later in life.”
Mladen switches position and starts passing the ball from one hand to the other, preparing to take a new position and start throwing the ball with his other hand. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a pause to almost all sports activities, and the ones that are still allowed are done within certain regulations.
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we used to have around three to four practices per week. Now we only do two, and we try to stay as safe as possible while doing so. When we practice we use as little equipment as possible to preserve the equipment for when it matters. We use the full equipment for when we do full contact- full tackle practice or when we play a game. When we play the sport professionally, we need all kinds of equipment to help us stay safe while still performing our best on the field.”
Mladen plays the position of a quarterback in the game. He gets into position and moves his body closer to the ground preparing to catch a ball passed from his teammate. “The specific action of flat-out throwing the football is one of the most important things in the sport.” He catches the pass and makes a throw towards the end of the field, leaving the ball spinning in the air. “Without the throw, the ball does not move and that is the whole point of the game move the ball forward and throwing is one of the biggest ways of doing so.”
After finishing up the practice Mladen packs up the ball into his backpack and prepares to head back into his dormitory. With little drops of sweat on his forehead, he smiles and gives me his phone. On the screen you can see a quote from the famous actor Bruce Lee: “You never actually fear a man that has done one thousand things once, you fear the man that has done one thing a thousand times.” He looks at the sky and smiles once again.
“I am a true believer that physical fitness helps you throughout your entire life and one of the people that has done exactly that with their life — put fitness first, is Bruce Lee. This is my favorite quote and I stand by it. This sport, the only way you can do it is by doing one thing over and over again. Putting your heart and soul into it and dedicating time to become better.”
###
Zheliana Borisova is studying Journalism and Business Administration at the American University in Bulgaria. She learned a lot about her subject and wants to continue pursuing a career in either war or sports journalism.
