Cody Holt and Adan Marquez
Before we begin the bread and butter of this absurd sounding article, allow me to lay out one simple word… Football. Football to many is just a game, just a simple thing that some play while others pay to watch in order to pass time. It is a game that many don’t have the pleasure of indulging themselves with on the field. A shame really, in my eyes, when others don’t have the chance to or don’t take the opportunity to participate. It is a game that I have come to know and love in a very literal sense. To some however, it is quite confusing and hard to understand what is to love so much about it. Often times to those people football itself and the players are a rare sighting; a rare breed of neanderthals that still occasionally roam the plains of the earth and decide to beat up on eachother once a week, but there’s more to it than that. From an outsider’s perspective, it’s hard to realize what exactly goes in and comes out of the game, but to us, the neanderthals, what we put in is all we have. What we get out of football is a multitude of things such as discipline, confidence, trust, work ethic, brotherhood, and most importantly love for the game and your brothers fighting beside you. The game of football to us is more than a “game” it is setting up our lifestyles.
The average official football season is 11 weeks long, each game having 4 quarters 12 minutes each, 4 practices a week, and then game day, the “Friday Night Lights.” The season starts in the fall, all the hard work that’s been put in the offseason is now finally put to the test. For many seniors It means it’s the start and end of their football career. Only a very few percentage will continue on to play in college and an even smaller group make it to the pros and make a living off of it. Allot of hard work sweat and tears comes out of that field. Being a senior changes everything, every game is more intense every practice seems to go by faster. You don’t know when it might be the last time you may step on the field ready to play. In football you learn to never take a play off, you always give it your all. Life is like football. The practices are like the beginning of your life. You’re learning new things, you make mistakes but learn from them, when you run into an obstacle you take it head on and overcome it. You get knocked right on your behind but you use that to motivate you to get up and fight back. What you get out of football follows you your whole life you learn to work hard for what you’re passionate about. The playbook is like your plans and moves of what you’re going to do in life. Whether you’re going to throw or run the ball, knowing what you are up against.
The question in recent years that has become very frequently asked is, “is football worth all of the injuries?” This is an excellent question considering many sources including NBC Sports, a major football broadcaster, state that around 90% of NFL players that have passed away suffered from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in their life. However, people continue to play the sport. People still love the game and honor it in all of it’s glory despite the prospect of severe head injuries and other common wounds that come with the territory. You may ask why this is; the answer is simple, you have to weigh risk versus reward, and it has proven that players tend to see more reward involved. It also seems as though they may be correct, studies such as the one mentioned on Fortune.com show that teenage athletes, including football players, are more likely to get good jobs later in life. Although occasionally there are negative repercussions from playtime to later on in life, the leadership, ability to bond, and work ethic carry on throughout the rest of these individuals’ lives and proves to help them in day to day tasks.
To most of us seniors this year at my high school, including myself, the end of football season was devastating and extremely emotional. The end of this season, for many of us, means the very end to ever playing football again. This ends much more than just a sport however, it ends a large milestone in many of our lives. Whether the impact of the sport that was bestowed upon the players will end just the same, or continue through the rest of their lives consciously, had to be discussed with the players who are now exiting the program. Josh Barnett was the first to be interviewed out of the bunch, and although he had not been a starter in the lineup, his responses to many questions seemed to carry a similar trend to those who had been starting. He stated that he has become an overall better person because of the sport. Will football make life easier for him down the road? His belief to answer that question was, “Absolutely.” Another member of the team early into the season, Dan Taylor, ended up not finishing his senior season because of more important outlooks on life, still is thankful for the time and had his views on “teamwork” and “character” strengthened due to the sport. The simple fact that so many of players and ex players immediately talk about emotional or mental benefits from the sport before ever even thinking about the physical contributions shows just how deeply this game hits in players’ hearts.
Football has found it’s way of intertwining itself in many of our lives, especially the lives of the players. The game is clearly more than just a game for a multitude of reasons. It shapes our ethics, helps us discover a variety of our emotions, and sets us up for the rest of our lives in one way or another. When you come out of the football program you come out feeling a sense of pride, and pride is something you will never lose. Lose or win on the field, football helps in the game of life forever. The pride, work ethic, camaraderie, and love for the game doesn’t go away. We are the football community and we can undoubtedly say that we can do anything we set our minds to thanks to football, and we carry that with us while walking tall!
