The First Football Game

Well I just want to let everyone know how excited and proud I am of the latest football prodigy in the family. My oldest son Chris had his JV game tonight and he even saw some action on a few plays. He made me proud holding his own against those guys on the front line. He played right guard and was the only one to block on his downs it seemed. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his games and 4 years of High School Football... His buddy Christian was also active and the Game started out with some real excitement for a JV game.

The opening Kick-off was something to witness. Christian was on the receiving team and played on the front line. As soon as the kicker kicked the ball, Christian made a B-Line for the kicker. He proceeded to Wrap him up and throw him on the ground. Wow what a nice play...Only problem... The kicker did not have the ball of course. So penalty for what.... holding I guess ?? when you tackle a kicker? It was a riot and I could just hear the coach telling him 30 seconds earlier...
"Son I want you to take that kicker out you hear me?!! That kicker should be out of the picture.. no where near the play!!.. That's your assignment!!" OF course he forgot to add that you should knock him over not tackle him. So the ensuing kickoffs went about the same and the kicker finally got wise and started running away from him after 4 or 5 kick-offs. A few were in circles in the middle of the field and I could hear the kicker screaming "Get away from me"

It brought back so many memories of my youth... Doing the practices and lifting the weights and boiling a mouth piece till it's soft and making your imprint with gritted teeth, going to the pep rally and wearing the "Game Jersey" and all the girls paying attention to you in class... Friends promising to come to the game and cheer for you... Then the time comes where you start the pregame prep... pre-game meal.. the pregame rituals and superstitions, getting dressed for the game and feeling like nothing could hold you back... You get all pumped up and take the field with a pure adrenaline rush.... Of course I then proceed to stand on the sidelines and never get in on more than 4 or 5 plays that first game... I wondered for a week how the game would have been different had I played more and why didn't the coach put me in because I was pumped.... It's tough being a freshman especially when you are 2 years younger than the "average" freshman.

I graduated when I was 16 and have always wished I had done the normal path to graduation at 18 upon looking back at my experiences. Dating would have been much easier at 16 in high school rather than trying to date 19 year old college freshmen... That's for sure.

Well my Cougars of BYU won their opener... Guess I may need to pay attention to them this season as 2 winning seasons have brought them from the cellar of the Mountain West Conference.. Which according to my wife is still not a real conference compared to the SEC..

I had my birthday yesterday and enjoyed all of the attention I got from the Family. Everyone was calling to see how I was doing.

I've been working from home the past 2 weeks but am getting primed for a return to the road. I'll make sure to post all of my favorite Airport hangouts and restaurant reviews from the road. The Birthday dinner was at Sam Seltzer's ... Which was a new one on me. I had never been and had heard it was not that good. I was surprised at the quality of the food not bad. The Ribs were good and the Prime Rib as excellent. The Martini glasses were too small for my liking and they seemed to have a hole in the bottom of the glass.

Well I have an MRI first thing tomorrow so I'm heading to bed in order to get my full nights sleep. I'll keep everyone posted on the results and explain in detail the reason in a future post.
Goodnight